Fatu Hiva (book) - On The Origins of The Polynesians

On The Origins of The Polynesians

It was in this setting, surrounded by the ruins of the formerly glorious Marquesan civilization, that Heyerdahl first developed his theories regarding the possibility of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact between the pre-European Polynesians, and the peoples and cultures of South America.

During several exchanges with an elderly Marquesan man who lived in Uia with them, a former cannibal named Tei Tetua, Heyerdahl determined that, although prior to the arrival of Europeans, cats were not to be found in Polynesia, the Marquesans were nonetheless familiar with the creatures, and indeed, certain of the carved tiki figures seemed very much to represent felines:

To our surprise, the reliefs of two human figures with hands above their heads appeared, and between them, two large quadrupeds in profile, each with an eye, a mouth, erected ears, and a tail. Two quadrupeds!...A cat?...Felines yes, but not rats. (p.173)

To the present day, Andean peasants consider the hail-cat, "ccoa" - seen with hail running out of his eyes - a beast to be reckoned with. (Sullivan, "The Secret Of The Incas", p.139)

The ccoa was an important figure in the Andean cultures. In the Mayan language, toh is the name for the puma. In Polynesia, toa is the word for "brave". Cats are not native to Polynesia, but somehow feline icons are found in their primitive sculptures and figures. In Samoa, pusi is an English derivative that was adopted with the newly arrived cat. In Fatu-Hiva, the name for cat is "poto". The fact that cats seem to display some sense of keen intellect probably caused the natives to name the new arrivals poto after the Polynesian word for smart, poto.

The observation prompted Heyerdahl to ask Tei Tetua from whence his people had come, to which he replied "the east":

"From where?" I asked, and was curious to hear the old man's reply. "From Te Fiti ", answered the old man and nodded toward that part of the horizon where the sun rose, the direction in which there was no other land except South America. (p.217)

Heyerdahl went on to explore this possibility a number of years later, as is detailed in his books Kon-Tiki and Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island.