Bark Cloth - Conclusion

I will try to wrap up the series of posts on bark-cloth in the Pacific region.

I have given examples and mentioned the different bark-cloth traditions found in Indonesia (Sualwesi - Celebes), Polynesia, Mesoamerica (Mayas and Aztecs), Northwestern Pacific coast of North America (British Columbia and Canda). The use of bark cloth was frequent in these societies before the arrival of Europeans, who replaced them with linnen, and cotton garments (Polynesia, Asia and NW North America - in Mesoamerica cotton was used in textiles by the upper classes) and with European paper.

Non woven textiles: Beaten Bark cloth

Beating bark to produce a fine and soft non-woven fiber which is shaped to produce barkcloth has been a common practice in many cultures around the world.

It is ancient, and predates weaving (interlacing threads in a crisscross pattern). The discovery of beaten bark may be very ancient, and originate in different places in a convergent independent discovery process, or, perhaps, a shared ancient knowledge like fire-making, or fish hook making, stone knapping, part of the survival kit of our ancestors.

Africa

The Mbuti pygmies of the D.R. of Congo in Africa have made and used barkcloth since antiquity (known as "pongo" in Kimbuti language and "molumba" in Kiswahili), they used it for their loincloths and traded it with farmers for food. They are made from bark of different trees, pounded with ivory hammers and painted by the women (Learn more: Barkcloth Designs of Mbuti Women, Barry S. Hewlett and L.L. Cavalli-Sforza (1991) Human Mossaic, Vol. 25, Nos. 1-2).

Southeast China and into Polynesia

The Southeastern China barkcloth beaters dating back almost 8,000 years were found in Dingmo, Guangxi (Dawei Li, Wei Wang, Feng Tian, Wei Liao, Christopher J. Bae, (2014). The oldest bark cloth beater in southern China (Dingmo, Bubing basin, Guangxi), Quaternary International, Vol 354, 15 December 2014, ps 184-189.) Dingmo site is SW China (see Google Map) produced a beater excavated from a layer dated to 7898 ± 34 BP. This is roughly 1,300 years older than the previous oldest beater, found at the Xiantouling Site in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China (close to Hong Kong).

These were neolithic modern humans, who spoke an Austric language (this was long before the current Han-Chinese appeared). They originated the proto-Austronesian people and language, which later spread south across Indonesia, Melanesia, and Poloynesia.

Current consensus (Source) is that the bark cloth technology that originated in SE China, spread from there to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and with the outflow of Austronesians, into Papua New Guinea, and the near Pacific Islands Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, and then into Polynesia, Niue, Cook Islands, Salomon Islands, Hawaii, and New Zealand. These peoiple made "Tapa cloth" and used the bark of paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) of the Moraceae family. Surprisingly, Africans also use ficus trees from the Moraceae family like Ficus natalensis (Mutuba) and Antiaris toxicaria (Kilundu).

A paper published in 2015 used DNA to track the trees used in barkcloth across SE Asia, Melanesia and Polynesia, suggesting that the migrants who moved from Taiwan into this region, took the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) with them together with their dogs, chickens, and pigs (C. Chang,H. Liu,X. Moncada,A. Seelenfreund,D. Seelenfreund, & K. Chung, (2015). A holistic picture of Austronesian migrations revealed by phylogeography of Pacific paper mulberry, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112 (44) 13537-13542, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1503205112.)

The study reported that "Using chloroplast DNA sequences, we demonstrate a tight genealogical link between its populations in South China and North Taiwan, and South Taiwan and Remote Oceania by way of Sulawesi and New Guinea, presenting the first study, to our knowledge, of a commensal plant species transported to Polynesia whose phylogeographic structure concurs with expectations of the “out of Taiwan” hypothesis of Austronesian expansion..."

But barkcloth didn't catch on in New Zealand. (Source) the ancestors of the Maoris brought their paper mulberry with them, which they called "aute" but it didn't gro well there, and bark cloth which was suitable in a Tropical climate didn't stand up to the colder and wetter New Zealand weather.

The Maori used local species like houhi, whauwhi, or houhere to replace the aute, but eventually they plaited and knitted strips of bark, and fiber from different vines and grasses to knit their skirts and capes-

Bark cloth in Mesoamerica

The Maya used different ficus species to make bark paper (Source). The main source for bark paper was the amate tree. Paper which they used for codices (books) and clothing for the poor. They also used bark from non-ficus trees for this purpose.

The Aztec people also used ficus and jonote, as well as a species of yucca, and maguey fiber. For paper and also for fiber which, they wove into mats and clothes for the lower classes. Notice the emphasis in the word "wove". The Aztecs had deep textile knowledge, and weaved cloth using not only maguey fiber, but also cotton, and wool. This wasn't beaten bark, it was a fiber fashioned from beaten plant fiber (maguey). Their paper was indeed beaten bark. But not used for clothes amont the Aztecs.

Northwestern North America

The natives along the Pacific coast of Canada and Alaska used the bark of redwoods (cedar) to make beaten bark textiles. The texts that I found show that they wove it, without using a loom, so it was similar to the Mexican textiles: it was woven, this makes it different to the Polynesian "tapa" wich was a non-woven textile.

Amazon Ashenikas

The Ashenika people who live in the Peruvian Amazon (Google Maps), wear a tunic called cushma. It is their typical dress, and it is made with woven cotton. Perhaps they adopted weaving after their contact with the advanced Inca civilization that lived to the west. But it seems likely that they originally used beaten bark for their clothing.

Sø Hvalkof, a researcher from Copenhagen University acquired a barkcloth cushma made in the Ene region. The natives told him that similar bark cloth cushmas were still used in the remote jungle areas between the Tambo River and the Gran Pajonal.

The Ashéninka Indians produced barkcloth cushmas in the past, and this fact was recorded by John Elick, 1970¹ who reported having seen children in the hills east of the Nevati river wearing rough cushmas of barkcloth in the 1950s. They were made from a ficus the natives called llanchama, (Olmeida aspera), a Moracea They told Hvalkof in the 1980s that they still knew how to make them, but that they lost their shape when the got wet, and preferred woven cotton clothes. Source and Source

¹ Elick, John William. 1970. An ethnography of the Pichis Valley Campa of Eastern Peru. Los Angeles: University of California dissertation. (297pp.).

Conclusion

Human beings are resourceful creatures who learn how to use what nature has to offer. The beaten bark fiber used by Africans, Asians, and Amerindians seems to be either an ancestral knowledge, or one fruit of independent discovery. The Melanesians and Polynesians seem to be the only group who received it as part of the Austronesian culture, as their ancestors moved across Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, into New Guinea, and the South Pacific Islands.

I don't think that the Polynesians took their beaten bark techniques to America.

Bark cloth Pacific rim. Fig. 2. Judith Cameron

As mentioned in my previous post, Judith Cameron (Trans-oceanic transfer of bark-cloth technology from South China-Southeast Asia to Mesoamerica?, 2008, in Islands of inquiry: colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes (Terra Australis 29). Editors, Geoffrey Clark, Foss Leach & Sue O'Connor, PublisherANU ePress, pp.203-210. Vol 1.) suggested an independent discovery of barkcloth:

"Notwithstanding the above-mentioned parallels, there is also the possibility that the Meso-american archaeological bark-cloth beaters belong to an independent cultural tradition that has no links with Southeast China or Southeast Asia... An... explanation is that prehistoric groups in Mesoamerica independently developed stone bark-cloth beaters..."

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Haida, Tlingit and Polynesians in a text from 1894

Continuing with research on the link between Polynesians and natives from the Northwestern coast of North America, in this post I will share an article published in 1894 (The American Antiquarian, Vol XVI, No. 1, Jan. 1894, Origin of the Indians, p. 8, Cyrus Thomas), that mentions the similarities between both groups, Polynesians and Amerindians.

An 1894 Article

The article mentions other books as refrences (underlined by me in the text, and commented further down), which widens the bibliography on this subject.

"No one has failed to remark the strong resemblance in many respects of the arts customs etc. of the people of the west coast especially of the Haida Indians and cognate tribes with those of the South Pacific islanders particularly the Melanesians and Polynesians.
If we compare the arts customs and traditions of some of the west coast tribes with those of the South Sea Islanders we shall find such striking coincidences as to render the supposition that they are accidental highly improbable.
The comparison made by Ensign AP Niblack in his recent work 'The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern British Columbia', between the Maori of New Zealand and the Haida Indians of our northwest coast brings out a series of coincidences which to say the least is, remarkable. And what renders this comparison of special interest is the fact that it is not made to sustain a theory, as the author is not an advocate of the idea of relationship or even contact between these widely separated tribes. It is thus he brieflly summarizes them: "In point of physical resemblance both are of the Mongoloid type, and both live on groups of islands whose climates are remark ably similar... Their political organization of the tribe, their ownership of land, and their laws of blood revenge are similar. The men tattoo with designs intended to identity themselves with their subtribe or household and they ornament their canoes, paddles, house fronts, etc., in somewhat the same manner as on the northwest coast... Under the head of "Rain Cloaks", Dixon (1787) is quoted as saying that the cloaks of the Haida and Tlingit were the same as those worn by the New Zealanders... Also a statement [from the same authority] that a Haida fortified house on an island of the Queen Charlotte group was built exactly on the plan of the hipah of the savages of New Zealand... and that the adzes of the Tlingit and Haida made of jasper were the same as those used by the New Zealanders. The cloaks of shredded inner bark in the National Museum from New Zealand and the Queen Charlotte Islands are so much alike that it takes a close inspection to distinguish them. In plate XXXII Fig 167 a New Zealand paddle is reproduced with a few from the northwest coast. The resemblance is marked and interesting... But it is safe to say that while this is not accidental, yet the resemblances and similarities are as likely to have arisen from the like tendencies of the human mind under the same external conditions or environment to develop a long parallel line, as through contact of these tribes or through a common origin."

The bibliography quoted by Cyrus Thomas

This work quotes a book by Ensign Albert P. Niblack, of the U.S. Navy, his book published in 1890 "The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern British Columbia." Which in its Chapter XV (General Notes: Relations and affinities of the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl —the Haida— Remarks on the Maori of New Zealand —the Kaigani- Ethnological work to be done.) starting on p.382, explores the similarities between Polynesians and NW Coast natives. The text quoted by Cyrus is found on p. 385. And the plate XXXII mentioned by Cyrus Thomas is shown below (adapted, only displaying the New Zealand and NW coast paddles).

Fig XXXII in A.P. Niblack, E (1890), p.292

Niblack also quotes Dixon; you can see the original text by Dixon in "Voyages" (1787), p.266: "Besides their ordinary dress, the natives at this place have a peculiar kind of cloaks made purposely to defend them from the inclemency of the weather. I had no opportunity of examining them minutely, but they appear to be made of reeds sewed very closely together, and I was told by one of our gentlemen who was with Captain Cook during his last Voyage, that they are exactly the same with those wore by the inhabitants of New Zealand."

The reference to the fortified houses built by the Haida, given by Dixon can be found on p. 206 "Captain Dixon no sooner saw the fortified hut just mentioned, then this suspicion was strengthened, as it was, he said, built exactly on the plan of the hippah of the savages at New Zealand."

Captain Cook, in February of 1777, visited a hippah, a fortified village with buildings made from reeds, on Motuara Island, New Zealand. It was unoccupied at that time. John Webber drew some sketches of the huts, and they were printed as engravings after Cook's death by B. T. Pouncy. Below is the engraving (Source).

To be continued. See my previous post on this subject.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Caleuche: the phantom ship of Patagonia

The native people on Chiloe Island, the Huilliches, on the Pacific coast of Chile, in its Patagonian region, believed in a strange legendary ghost ship called "Caleuche".

The name, according to one source, derives from the Huilliche words caletún, which means "change appearance" and che, "people". Meaning that the mystery ship is a shapeshifter. It was a ship that haunted the shores, a coastal Flying Dutchman of Patagonia.

Phantom Ship

I hadn't mentioned it in my books because it is a ship, not an animal or monster. It is an enchanted watercraft. But it was recorded by different ethnologists over a century ago. Let's see what they have to say about it.

Vicuña Cifuentes in 1915 (Estudios de Folklore chileno. Mitos y supersticiones recogidos de la tradición oral chilena, con referencias comparativas a los de otros países latinos. page 26, wrote:

"Caleuche is a submersible ship that sails in the seas of Chiloe. It is manned by witches, and on dark nights it has been seen afloat, brightly lit up. The Caleuche has a feature, when the circumstances demand, it can become a trunk, a rock or any other object, and its sailors become sea lions or aquatic birds. It is an infernal pirate that brings terror to the homes of the islanders, who know that if they have the bad luck of becoming its prey, even for one instant, they will lose their minds, and with their face turned around, towards their bakcs for the rest of their lives... It is also called the Ship of the Arts.. when a boat disappears mysteriously it is taken as a fact that it was boarded by the Caleuche's crew and its passengers held captive on board the fearsome pirate ship."

F. Cavada, in 1914 wrote about it (Chiloé y los Chilotes). He also said it was submersible; "a mythical submarine ship, that sails both seas and rivers... It is the same story of the phantom vessel, so popular in the Cape of Good Hope, and in other people of the Baltic and Mediterranean seas and the Antilles. Better said, such a vessel is a popular myth in almost all times and countries.

The Flying Dutchman

The Flying Dutchman myth is about a ship that is doomed to sail the seas forever. It is the outcome of a pact with the devil, signed by the ship's Dutch captain, to navigate safely and avoid the terrible storms on the southern tip of Africa (Cape of Good Hope). It is also seen at night, a phantom vessel. The ship can never dock at any port, and must sail the seas forever.

Alejandro Cañas desiribed it in 1911 (Vol XI de los Trabajos del Cuarto Congreso Científico o Pan Americano celebrado en Santiago de Chile del 25 de Diciembre de 1908 al 5 de Enero de 1909, Estudios de la Lengua Veliche, p. 256). He called it the Ship of Art, manned by witches and wizards, and "that many have said they have seen it and navigate at night, lit up, and with red sails."

The origin of the myth

Death and pestilence at sea was not uncommon in the 1500s and 1600s. Scurvy, tropical diseases, even the plague were rife at that time. The myth probably originated when sailors or people living on the shore sighted a derelict vessel, with its crew dead, pushed by the winds... a phantom ship, with a ghostly crew.

The Caleuche could have arisen after the native Mapuche, Chono, and Huilliche people along the Patagonian coast saw the first Spanish vessels in the mid 1500s. Then came the Dutch: Simon de Cordes (1599), Olivier van Noort (1600), Joris van Spilbergen (1614), Jacob le Maire and Willem Schouten (1615), Jacques l'Hermite (1625), Hendrik Brouwer (1643). And also English mariners like Sir Francis Drake (1578), Thomas Cavendish (1587), Richard Hawkins (1593), just to name a few.

The sight of European galleons must have impressed the natives, ships that came from nowhere and vanished into the deep ocean.

Alternatively, the myth could have originated when the Amerindians saw the first Polynesian outriggers reach the coast of Southern Chile, large catamaran canoes with sails and odd-looking crews. Then, much later, the European vessels would have contributed to the ancient myth.

Red Sails; Melanesian? Polynesian?

Robert Henry Codrington (1891) in The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore, (p. 292) mentions that " red 'butterfly' sails were the common and pleasing ornament of an island scene in the New Hebrides and Banks' groups."

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

INDEX for our Trans-Pacific Contact posts: Oceania to America

For those who are interested, this is an index linked to all of our posts about the possible trans-Pacific contact or voyages between Polynesia, Oceania, Melanesia, and America, in both directions, as it also includes American voyates to Polynesia. It will help you navigate the different posts.

Updated: 26 - Dec - 2025

Index

• Tupac Inca Yupanqui's voyage to the Polynesian Islands
• Did the Polynesians or the Amerindians reach Juan Fernández Archipelago?
• The sewn canoe: a link between Amerindians and Polynesians
• Polynesian skulls found in Mocha Island, Patagonia, Chile
• The Marquesans and their Melanesian heritage
• Aboriginal New Zealand Natives (before the Maori)
• The peopling of Polynesia, an article from 1910
• The Manahune of Society Islands & Tahiti - Original Inhabitants
• Society Islands (Tahiti, Moorea) and the fair-dwarfish pre-Polynesians
• The Marianas Islands dwarf: Taotaomo’na
• Menehune, the pre-Polynesian dwarf people
• Who were the first people to reach Polynesia?
• Australia to America... via the Antarctic (Paul Rivet's Theory)
• Oceanians: Okewa in the Americas
• Molina on the "engraved stones": Oceanian (Polynesians) in Patagonia
• Palau Islands "pygmies"
• Austronesians and America: the Transpacific Route
• Polynesian - Amerindian admixture
• Polynesian - Mapuche contact: The chickens
• Neves and Pucciarelli's paper on affinities between Australians and Paleoindians
• Easter Islanders met Amerindians before 1492
• Amerindians navigated to Polynesia before the Polynesians arrived there
• Circling Antarctica and getting into America
• Homo Erectus in America - More (Melanesians)
• Pygmies of Ponape: The Chokalai

The Pacific, Polynesia and Oceania.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Did the Polynesians or the Amerindians reach Juan Fernández Archipelago?

The Juan Fernandez Archipelago lies roughly 80°W and 33.5° S, around 700 km west of Santiago de Chile (435 mi.), there are two islands, named for a famous castaway and the character he inspired: Alexander Selkirk Island to the west, and Robinson Crusoe Island to the east.

They were discovered by chance in 1574 when Juan Fernández set sail from Callao, Peru to Chile and decided to avoid the doldrums along the coastal route which extended the voyage duration to up to six months. He sailed west, and then south, shortening the trip to only 30 days, and discovered the Juan Fernandez Archipelago and the islas Desventuradas (Unfortunate Islands) 26°19'S and 80°W.

They were uninhabited, and soon became a stopover on the voyage from the Strait of Magellan to Polynesia. They offered water, food, and vegetation that helped restore the ailing mariners.

Over the following centuries, they were settled and abandoned by Spaniards, Chileans, Peruvians, they faced occupation attempts by the French and British, until finally, they became a Chilean National Park and an UNESCO Biosphere reserve. Work is in progress to protect its endangered fauna and flora, endemic and unique, that has been under siege due to the introduction of goats, cats, rabbits, cows, dogs, and foreign plants. See this book by Vicuña Mackenna (1883) on the island's history.

The question of pre-European discovery and settlement has been addressed, and a paper details the work by Atholl Anderson et al., (2002): Archaeological exploration of Robinson Crusoe Island, Juan Fernandez Archipelago, Chile, January 2002, New Zealand Archaeological Association.

They did not find any artifacts showing the presence of pre-European people on the island, but they found charcoal that is older than 1574, the discovery date of these islands. Fire is always a suggestion of human activity, even though it can occur due to natural reasons (lightning strikes in a dry environment with combustible plant material).

At Cumberland bay, the most sheltered area of the island, and one close to the largest expanse of flat ground in the abrupt island, the authors found charcoal "below the level of modern and historical artefactual remains these suggest that there have been forest firing in the pre-European , around the late first millennium and early second millenium AD. While interesting and potentially significant, they do not provide a strong indication of prehistoric occupation in the absence of cultural remains or of any horizon of charcoal, burnt rocks, etc."

The dates in the table 2 of this paper give these charcoal remains the following dates: 1340 ± 40 AD, 1010 ± 170, and 640 ± 210. The authors say that until the rockshelters are excavated nothing more can be said about prehistoric presence in the islands Nevertheless they consider it unlikely due to several reasons: the great distance from the main Eastern Polynesian bases, a vast ocean with no islands (Only Rapa Nui to the west), and for South American sailors, strong easterly head winds and choppy sea. The conclude "As in the case of remote western islands of Polynesia, occupation was likely to have been either very brief (Norfolk Island) or absent (Lorde Howe Island)."

Robinson Crusoe Island. Source

I am curious why the paper shows a midden at La Vaquería, when it mentions the island sites that they analyzed, but does not mention it in the text. Midden is a dump of refuse, of ancient domestic garbage, coastal midden piles are mainly sea shells piled up by those who consumed them, and accumulated over hundreds, even thousands of years. The term may also apply to more recent dumps or heaps, containing potsherds, bricks, etc.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

The Marquesans and their Melanesian heritage

While seeking more information about the possible early peopling of Polynesia by Melanesian people (which could have also continued their journey across the Pacific Ocean and reached America thousands of years ago, and admixed there with the Amerindians), I found some intersting information regarding the Marquesas Islands people and a link with Melanesia.

Roslyn Poignant, in her book Oceanic mythology : the myths of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Australia, published in 1967, mentions on page 13 a similarity between Marquesans and Melanesians: "The Marquesans headband ornament of carved turtleshell overlaying pearlshell provides an important clue to the origin of the Marquesans. It bears a close resemblance to an ornament called a kapkap, found in parts of Melanesia." These Marquesan jewels are known as "uhikana". Adding that:

"The Society Islands were reached by about 200 B.C., but so were the most easterly Marquesas. Excavation in the latter islands showed that the first comers must have arrived direct from western Polynesia at a time when the culture of the area was hardly differentiated from that of Melanesia, for amongst the objects found was a carved pearlshell headdress ornament which in Melanesia is called a kapkap. This style of ornament continued to be worn by the Marquesans until last century. It has been found nowhere else in Polynesia, and the nearest place it reappears is Melanesian Santa Cruz, near the New Hebrides."

Santa Cruz is 6,000 km (3.740 mi.) from the Marshalls. This is a long journey.

The kapkaps of the Melanesians are made in the same manner as those of the Marquesas and it is "worn around the neck or on the forehead... a circular white clamshell disc overlaid with carved dark-brown turtle-shell fretwork". (Source; see also this source).

They were one of the most popular forms of jewelry among Melanesian and all of them were made the same way, by overlaying giant clam shell disks with delicate artwork carved in turtle shell. They were very common along the coast of New Guinea all the way to the Santa Cruz Islands. (Source).

Below are two kapkaps from New Ireland.

Two of the kapkaps on display from New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Pitt Rivers Museum. Source

Below is a uhikana from the Marquesas, notice how similar the Melanesian and "Polynesian" (Marquesan) objects are!

Uhikana, Metropolitan Museum, late 1800s. Source

The headdress pictured above (known as uhikana) were part of the ceremonial clothing used by the tribal chiefs of the Southern Marquesas. In the image we can see a fiber headband with a central disk of pearl shell overlaid with turtle shell, forming a tiki star.

Melanesians

The people of Melanesia used disks on their heads, if inland, they made them from other materials. Below are some images depicting disks and headbands from this region.

Roro Woman in Papua New Guinea, 1914. Source

Samoan Chief, 1907. Source

The image below shows a Solomon Island chief with a large kapkap on his head.

Portrait of Irobaoa of Suafa, north Malaita, Solomon Islands, c.1910. wearing a kap-kap. Source

Marquesan People

The chief from the image below was portrayed during Captain James Cook's Second Voyage (1772-1775) at the island of Tahu Ata (which, when discovered in 1595 by Álvaro de Mendaña was named Santa Cristina) in the Marquesas.

Cook's account records the chief's name as Honoo (now written Honu), and their encounter took place in April 1774.

Chief Honu at Santa Christina or Tahu Ata. Southern Marquesas Islands. Source

CAPTION HERE. Copyright © 2025 by Austin Whittall

The image below, taken in 1895 in the Marquesas Islands is captioned: "Postmarked September 17, 1908. 8.8 x 13.8 cm. The figure with the white beard wearing a uhikana headband appears in other photographs by Homes, circa 1895 (Marquesan Chief of Atuona). He is adorned with a mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell uhikana headband, as well as a titi ouoho covering his shoulders and a toke ouoho skirt also made of human hair. The second figure wears a feathered headdress. The seated figure in profile and the one on the right have tattoos."

Marquesan men, 1895 note the uhikana on the man with the white beard. Source

Below are some "Marquesan Chiefs" in an engraving published in 1871. Note the uhikana on the man on the right captioned "Marquesan Chief (see page 1049)". On that page it adds more context:

"When they wish to be considered as wearing full dress, the better class of men wear a most elaborate cap, made of fibre, feathers, and shells. First, a broad fillet is plaited from cocoa-nut fibre, so as to pass round the forehead, after the manner of a cap without d crown. On the centre of this fillet is fixed a large plate of mother-o'-pearl, decorated with carving. In the middle of this plate is fixed a smaller but similarly shaded plate of tortoise-shell, and in the middle of that a still smaller disc of pearl shell. Some headdresses have three of these ornaments, as is the case with that which is figured in the Marquesan chief on the 1046th page.
In the fillet are also fastened a number of feathers, either from the tail of the cock or from that of the tropic bird, so that when the fillet is bound on the forehead the feathers will stand upright. The feathers of the tropic bird are greatly prized by the natives, who use them for various ornaments, and display great ingenuity in procuring them. Instead of killing the birds, and so stopping the supply of feathers, they steal upon them when they are asleep, and dexterously twitch out the two long tail-feathers. In process of time the feathers grow again, and so the supply is kept up. I mention the custom because it is contrary to the recklessness respecting the future which is usually found among savages."

Marquesan men, 1895 note the uhikana on the man on the right. Source

So there is a unique link between the Marquesans, of all the different Polynesian people, on hundreds of islands spread across the Pacific, that wear a motherpearl inlaid with turtle shell jewel that is almost identical to the one used by Melanesian people in Papua New Guinea, and the Salomons. This suggests that the Melanesians reached the Marquesas Islands before the later wave that replaced them in the islands lying between the Eastern Pacific and Melanesia. Since Melanesians have been around for over 40,000 years. So they had plenty of time to move east, across the Pacific.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Menehune, the pre-Polynesian dwarf people

Besides the fairy like Patupaiarehe of New Zealand, and their Uriukehu offspring, in my previous post, I also mentioned the Manahune or Menenhune, an enslaved group of first migrants to reach the Polynesian Islands.

They were the lowest class in Tahiti, where they were known as "Manahune" (Source). They are found in the ancient oral history of the Polynesians, in Rarotonga, they were known as "little people". There, and among the Maori of New Zealand, the word "manahune" means scab, or mark on the body. They don't appear to have had a different skin color (white, or fair, or black).

In 1897, Percy Smith suggested that the name was due to some ritual scarring that left cicatrices, and writes the following (Source):

"...Fornander [see Abraham Fornander, An Account of the Polynesian Race, Its Origin and Migrations and the Ancient History of the Hawaiian People to the Times of Kamehameha. (1878), Volume 1, p. 55] seemed to be of the opinion that this was a racial name applied by the Polynesians to themselves in ancient times and derived from one of their remote ancestors named Kalani Menehune but from Maori and Rarotonga accounts they appear rather to have been an alien race. The vague notions the Polynesians generally have in regard to the Manahune their living in the mountains and forests the wonderful powers of sorcery &c accredited to them seems to point to their having been a race living in the remote past conquered by the Polynesians and probably often enslaved by them.
There seems to be two possible or probable theories to account for the Manahune. Either they were the first migration into the Pacific or they were one of the races the Polynesians came into contact with in Indonesia or further to the west and some of whom they brought with them in their migrations as slaves. In this latter case the stories of their having inhabited Hawaii and Hawaiki are Indonesian events localised in process of time in the Pacific homes of the Polynesians. The latter theory is probably the more consonant with what is known of the Manahune."

Menehune in Hawaii

Percy Smith also noted that they appear in the traditions of the Hawaiian natives and "they appear to have been at one time very numerous and lived in the mountains but were in a state of subjection to the Hawaiians performing for them many works that required great numbers in order to complete the task at once. Like the Patupai arehe of New Zealand these people are said not to like the daylight but worked at night. Many of the heiaus and some of the loko i a or fish ponds of Hawaii are said to have been built by the Menehune."

There is a remaining structure that is attributed to these Menehune, the "Menehune Ditch", registered in the National Register of Historic Places, from where the following information is taken (Source):

The Menehune, or Peekauai Ditch, also known as Kiki-a-'ola, was built by the junction of the Waiamea and Makaweli rivers, on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. It is 7,000 ft. long (roughly 2.1 km) and runs along the foot of a cliff or pali and the wall of the ditch was built with blocks of stone. See it in Google maps.

"The ditch was built prehistorically to irrigate the taro (Colocasia esculenta) patches in lower Waimea Valley. Legends and chants tell of Ola, King of Waimea, who, through Pi, his kahuna or priest, caused the great water-lead to be built which is still called Kiki-a-'ola. Pi then chose the location and contacted the Menehunes (legendary race of small people reknown for their overnight construction activities) to construct the ditch features in one night
... The earliest written account of the ditch is by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 when he visited Waimea Valley...
The construction of the causeway is unique in the use of dressed and jointed stones. The other examples of cut stone construction are limited to Kukuipahu Heiau (temple) in North Kohala and several out-of-context stones in Kailua-Kona, both on Hawaii Island. However, Kiki-a-'ola is the only example of jointed stonework and offers a unique example of this type of causeway construction. Additionally, there are three types of joints represented, including double joint, square joint, and notched joint. The prehistoric appearance of the ditch wall would have been impressive with a 24 foot high faced wall of dress and jointed stones. Today, the scale of the causeway is only suggested in the exposed upper two to three courses of stonework."

There is an article (Stories of the Menehunes - Hawaii The Original Home of the Brownies (See p.112) with plenty of information about these people and their buildings (which included ancient temples or "heiaus").

Mehune ditch. Source

In my book, I mention that:

"Dwarfish people are deeply rooted in the ancestors of Polynesians and they are found along the route they followed as they made their way across Austronesia: the duwendes of the Philippines, otu dogkek of Borneo, Orang Pendek of Sumatra, lai ho’a of Flores, To Uta of Sulawesi, Kanika of New Guinea, Leimuba of Nendo, Sengalengale of Vanuatu, and ‘autotoe of Samoa, to name a few.
Among the Polynesians, in Hawaii, there was a similar myth to the chélep regarding the Menehune, who were short people, not more than 90 cm tall (3 ft.), yet stocky and strong. They had dark or red skin and lived in the forests; they could work and shape stone skillfully. They built walls, roads, and canals during the night.
This myth probably reflects the encounter of two cultures when Polynesians from Tahiti reached Hawaii ca.900 AD and confronted the first wave of Polynesians from the Marquesas Islands that had settled the islands around 400 AD.
The Hawaiian legend says that: 'The Tahitians found the islands already inhabited by Menehune, and they pushed the Little People all the way back to Kaua’i, the last large island sitting at the edge of the Hawaiian Island chain. Ultimately, the Dwarves were forced to escape into the high mountains and hidden valleys, and outside the world of man'. (Source) This encounter echoes what happened to the Haush when the Selk’nam reached their territory, and to the Teushen or Chüwach a Künna, who were displaced to marginal land by the Tehuelche."

The “Hobbit” and dwarfish hominins

Minute non-human hominids are not unknown to science. For instance, the so-called “hobbit” (Homo florsiensis), just one meter tall (3.3 ft.), was discovered in 2003 on Flores Island, Indonesia; it was alive just 13,000 years ago, and thus co-existed with modern humans. In 2010, the Callao Cave hominin was discovered in Luzon, Philippines, 2,740 km (1,706 mi) north of Fores. Its 67,000-year-old remains show it was a diminutive hominin, which may have been or not a H. sapiens.

Dwarfish hominids have also been found on the Pacific islands of Palau (7°30’ N, 134°30’ E), 1,750 km (1,100 mi.) southeast of Luzon. Their remains are very recent, less than 2,800 years old, and they are minute: these creatures weighed between 29 and 43 kg (64 - 95 lb.)-.

Could it be possible that Yosi, the pre-human Tachwüll of the Tehuelche natives, and the Fuegian people, the Yagan’s post-Deluge dwarves are all an ancient racial memory of the Hobbit imprinted in the minds of the Patagonian natives and perpetuated in their myths? If so, we would have to explain how beings living nearly halfway across the globe from each other could have come into close contact.

Perhaps the Hobbit traveled from Asia to America, being the first hominid to colonize the New World long before the arrival of modern humans, or they could have evolved independently in America from some prior migration of hominids (i.e., Homo erectus). In either case, the Paleo-Indians would have met the Hobbit in America. H. florsiensis is an ancient Homo lineage and related to our distant ancestors Homo habilis and Homo erectus. The Hobbit managed to survive for a long time since it left Africa around 1.75 Ma. and could have reached the New World.

It predates the discovery of fire and would have used primitive Oldowan stone tools of the “core and flake” variety, in which a stone core was hit with a hammer stone, chipping it to produce flakes and leaving a chopper core. Both flakes and core were used to cut, bash, and scrape.

Remarkably, the islands of Palau and Luzon are only accessible by sea, so if the dwarf population on both islands originated elsewhere, then these pygmies were seafarers. Crossing by sea from Southeast Asia and Melanesia to America would avoid the problem of explaining Hobbit survival along the difficult trek from the tropical insular western Pacific to America through tough polar climes. It would also explain the Polynesian dwarf myths.

Fascinatingly, the Australian Aboriginal people also have legends about wild hairy pigmies that they call Gubba; these are very similar to the Fuegian Yosi in appearance and size, being barely one meter tall (3 ft. 4 in.) In the Australian case, the explanation is simple and quite feasible: Flores Island is only 720 km (447 mi.) from northern Australia, so it is very likely that the Aboriginals could have met Hobbits when they first entered Australia, crossing Sunda 50,000 years ago.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Who were the first people to reach Polynesia?

In this post we will look into the possible migration from Austronesia and Melanesia to America as proposed by Paul Rivet, but looking at an early timeline, since Polynesians reached the islands of the Pacific between 700 and 1200 AD, while America was peopled over 15,000 years ago.

This implies that there must have been an earlier group of people living in this region before the arrival of Polynesians 1300 to 800 years ago.

The First People in Polynesia

The Polynesians consiered that there was an original race of people inhabiting the islands they reached during their expansion across the Pacific Ocean, they called them Manahune. These mythical beings are very human in many ways, and suggest that they were possibly members of some previous wave that peopled Polynesia.

William Halse Rivers (1864-1922) proposed in 1914 (The History of Melanesian Society) that there had been two waves of people that populated Polynesia the first wave became the serfs, or commoners, enslaved by the second wave people, who became their overlords.

"Even with the available evidence, however, there is much which points to the two-fold nature of Polynesian culture. If the distinction between chiefs and commoners in Melanesia has been the result of the fusion of two peoples, the chiefs being the representatives of an immigrant people, it will be difficult to withhold a similar explanation of the two orders of chief and commoner in Polynesia." (p.280)

I have found references on the pre-Polynesian people that are said to have inhabited New Zealand. One of such sources states that "... This is the forbidden pre-Maori history with reports being withheld and access being denied to evidence of its first inhabitants who were annihilated by the arriving Maori. The Ngati Hotu tribe of New Zealand, described as being light-skinned, with light eyes and reddis hair, were the last surviving pre-Maori Urukehu.'They say we do not exist. They say we are an extinct race. My people still carry the red and blond hair, blue-green eyes, and fair skin of our ancestors. We are the Ngati Hotu." No reference is given for this quote, and it sounds as if it wass conspiracist, racist and pure pseudoscience.

The Urukehu, however, were real. The Encyclopedia of New Zealand - Te Ara, managed and updated by Manatu Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage in Wellington, New Zealand. Includes an entry on them, and the following image:

Uurukehu. Source

"This photograph is from "The old-time Maori" (1938), by Mākereti Papakura. She notes that the blonde, fair child and the father, Tonihi (right), are both Urukehu. While some believe that Urukehu (fair-headed, fair-skinned Māori) are the offspring of the fairy people patupaiarehe, Mākereti Papakura believed that this light-skinned strain dates back to the traditional Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki, and that albino Māori are the product of the union between Māori and patupaiarehe. She describes patupaiarehe as ‘supernatural children of the mist ... seen in indistinct form in the passing mist. ... They are fair, and are clothed in flimsy white like the web of the pūngāwerewere [spider]."

Patupaiarehe were fairy-like people, pictured below in a New Zealand stamp (source, they lived in the forests and mountains, had blue eyes, fair hair and white or red skin. They abducted women.

Finally, these Ngāti Hotu peoiple were an actual tribe that lived in the Taupō district when the first Maori poeple (priest Ngātoroirangi and explorer Tia) arrived in New Zealand, "discovering" it, and settling there: "The tribe were referred to as ‘urukehu’ (fairy people) because of their unusual red hair and fair skin" (Source).

A plausible explanation is that these fair haired people are the result of Melanesian genes. According to a paper published in Science, Melanesians "from the Solomon Islands and Equatorial Oceania have the darkest skin pigmentation outside of Africa, they also have the highest prevalence of blond hair (5 to 10%) outside of Europe." It is caused by a mutation in the TYRP1 gene, which is involved in the production of the skin and hair darkening pigment melanin. Other mutations in the TYRP1 gene can provoke albinism. This genetic trait is different to the one that causes fair hair in Europeans.

Judge W. E. Gudgeon in his work Maori migrations to New Zealand, 1892, (p. 217) mentions that "It can hardly be doubted that there were many tribes of Polynesian descent in occupation of this country when the crew of the Arawa entered the river at Maketu, Bay of Plenty... Among other well-known tribes now extinct, but who are regarded by the Maoris as Autocthones, are the following : Ngati-Eahnpungapunga, Nga-Marama, Te Elawerau, Marangaranga, Ngati-Hotu, Maruiwi, Te Baupongaoheohe, Te Tururumauka, Te Aruhetawiri, Te Aoraorn, Waitaha-Torauta, Whatumamoa, and many others ; some of whom are still tribes such as Ngati-Mahanga, NgatiUepohatu, Nga-Potiki, &c." So clearly, Gudgeon believed that the Polynesians reached New Zealand over a long period of time, and among the first arrivals, these "Authoctones" were the Ngati-Hotu.

I doubt we will find any future research on this matter, because the Maori, like the Mapuche of Chile, the U.S. and Canadian First Nations, and the Australian Aboriginals, don't like any theory that suggests that there were other people who reached "their" homeland before they did, and are willing to defend their status as "First People" by denying those theories and literally burying the evidence (Mungo man reburied and Kennewick man reburied).

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

The inscriptions on a Patagonian Axe - Adze - Stone plaquette

In my post on engraved stones, better known as "Stone Plaquettes", where I mentioned Father Molina's theory of an "Oceanian" (Polynesian) origin for them, I included the stone pictured below. I was intrigued by the "letters" (or symbols that resemble letters) engraved on the top of the stone tool, which is unique among all the native artifacts I have seen to date. So, I tried to learn more about it. This post is about what I learned during my investigation.

78 - Axe in basalt with inscription and red paint. - Patagones, collection of Mrs. Julia M. De Serrano

The Story Behind this Axe

I came across an interesting paper on stone axes (Source) which mentions this particular artifact.

Argentine anthropologist and professor, Milcíades Alejo Vignati (1895-1978), studied several Patagonian sites and his studies identified the Gennakenk (Northern Tehuelche) people and culture. He investigated many objects and artifacts that were held in private collections by local farmers and ranchers. In a letter written in the late 1930s, he asked a teacher living in Carmen de Patagones, Mrs. Emma Nozzi, to track down some stone axes he had first seen in 1916. He gave her the details of eight of them, one of which was this strange axe.

Local rancher Juan P. Martín had two artifacts. Nozzi wrote back to him with the information, and said:

"the axes that belonged to D[on] P. Martín are kept by his daugher Doña Julia M. de Serrano. I have held the pieces in nmy hands, both very interesting, but “they will not go out of the house of their owner”. Her father did not allow it, neither will she. They were found at "Los Duraznos" -Guardia Mitre- and photographed by the professor German Fish. If you wanted to study them your only option would be to meet the owner, extremely possessive, yet friendly and elegant like the ancient Maragatos [people who founded the town, and came from a region in León, Spain, called Maragatería] that history tells us about. During her youth she explored her father's fields, and for this reason it would be very interesting for you to talk with Mrs. Serrano."

Evidently Molina managed to see the axe in the early 1970s while he prepared his book, "Patagónica". But Vignati never published any article about it.

Trying to track down Mrs. Serrano, I found out that her maiden name was not Martín, instead, it was Martini. The Martinis were part of the "upper class" of the town of Carmen de Patagones. Mrs. Martini wass born as Julia Martini, on Sept. 5, 1890. She died in 1960. She married Pedro Antonio Serrano in 1916, he was the Governor of the Río Negro Territory from 1913 to 1916. Her father, the owner of the ranch in Guardia Mitre was her father Juan Pedro Domingo Martini (b.1859), her mother was Leopoldina Secundina Miguel. Her eldest brother was Mayor of Carmen de Patagones (1929-30), and she had two other brothers, and two sisters. (Source)

Emma Nozzi continued working as a teacher, but she got more involved in anthropology and archaeology and eventually wound up as the Director of the Carmen de Patagones Museum which she had helped create in 1951, with a collection of artifacts that she had gathered and obtained for the Museum, as donations. (See this bio of Nozzi). In 1991, the Museum was renamed after her.

The museum's website does not provide much information about its collections. I asked them if the de Serrano collection objects form part of their current inventory. The museum replied, thanking me for the context that I had provided in my information request, and confirmed that they do have this piece in their collection ("Dear Austin, Thank you for your message and for all the information you shared; it really provides some very interesting context. We can confirm that we have an axe in our collection that matches the description you provided. We don't have any further information to add at this time, but we appreciate your inquiry and are interested in receiving any information you may have. We remain available to continue exchanging information or references on this and other topics related to the region. Best regards.")

What is it?

The use given to these engraved stone plaquettes, stones axes or adzes remains a mystery. Several theories have been proposed, below are some of them:

• "Models or schemes of textiles, especially ponchos." A design template for weaving ponchos. This theory was put forward by Hector Greslebin in 1928. (Nueva hipótesis sobre el destino de las placas grabadas de la Patagonia prehistorica, Physis, Revista de la Sociedad Argentina de Ciencias Naturales, Vol IX, 1928-29 pp.223-233). Greslebin noted that one of the plaquettes was found beside a spindle whorl, suggesting they were used together.
• They were spades or shovels, used to dig. Vignati wrote an article about this use (Vignati, Milciades A. 1923. Las llamadas hachas patagonicas, Descripcion. de ejemplares y nueva interpretacion, Comunicaciones del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural Bernardino Rivadavia, vol. II (1923-1925), no. 3, pp.17-44.) concluding that:
  "1. The so-called Patagonian "axes" are suitable for digging the earth and would have been used to prepare graves;
  2. In addition to being a tool, they can be considered a distinctive mark of the women who carried out the funeral ceremonies. The ornamental designs presuppose a value for the axes that transcends their simple utilitarian purpose;
  3. The graves where axes are found probably belong to women who were buried with the tool and as a symbol of their profession."

The symbols on this axe

The Tehuelche people who lived along the Negro River in the area close to Guardia Mitre, where the adze was found, did not have any form of writing or script. Their neighbors, the araucanized Puelche people, and the Mapuche from the upper Rio Negro valley also lacked writing.

The natives had symbols, and designs that they painted on their guanaco-fur blankets, known as quillangos. They also scratched them on the stone plaquettes. Lacking ceramics, they did not use them to decorate baked clayware.

To interpret the inscription on this axe we have to define which is the top and which is the bottom. As shown in the figure below:

The symbols resemble the following text: Z ſ S I ❯ K, or, if inverted, Ʞ ❮ I S ȷ Z.

The "inverted, or backward K" does not exist as a letter in Spanish. The "long s" (ſ) and the inverted C or "greater than" (❯) symbols are not used in that language either.

And they are not Polynesian symbols either. The Rongorongo script found in Easter Island (Rapa Nui) uses glyphs that do not resemble letters, and neither do the Hawaiian petroglyphs from Waianae. Molina's conjecture of an "Oceanian" origin does not seem to apply to this artifact.

The symbols are not punic in case you suspect some Phoenician or Carthaginian envoys visiting Patagonia in the distant past. Yes, you could argue that the K is an aleph (𐤀), the inverted K is kaf ( 𐤊), the S is a nun (𐤍), the C ia a lamed (𐤋), and the inverted C, a pé (𐤐), but there is no Z character in punic.

I believe that the text is just a mimicry of Latin symbols, and meaningless, probably used to evoke the power of the Spanish conquerors.

Further reading

The following article contains plenty of information on axes and plaquettes that were discovered in Patagonia:
R. Lehmann-Nitsche, (1909). Hachas y placas para ceremonias procedentes de Patagonia, Revista del Museo de La Plata, Vol. XVI (2da Serie V.III), p.204.
Below is one of the many figures included in this paper:

That same issue has an interesting article by Lehmann-Nitsche on the ceremonial stone head-shaped clubs, or clava from Chile and Argentina (Clavas Cefalomorfas de piedra procedentes de Chile y de la Argentina, p. 150).
The following image of a clava is from this article:

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall © 

Oceanians: Okewa in the Americas

My previous post mentioned Father Molina's point of view on the "Oceanian" presence in Patagonia c.500 AD. He also mentions Polynesian ceremonial clubs or "okewa". Today's post will explore other articles on these clubs in the Americas.

In 1930, José Imbelloni (1885-1967), an Italian anthropologist who lived and worked in Argentina, wrote a paper about the Okewa and other similar artifacts (Imbelloni, J. (1930). ON THE DIFFUSION IN AMERICA OF PATU ONEWA, OKEWA, PATU PARAOA, MITI, AND OTHER RELATIVES OF THE MERE FAMILY. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, 39(4(156)), 322–345. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20702331).

The paper includes several photographs and describes artifacts unearthed in Arkansas, California, the State of Washington, Oregon, Michigan, British Columbia (Canada), Mexico, Peru, Argentina,

Imbelloni discards "convergence" by which people in the Americas created artifacts that are identical to those manufactured in New Zealand by Polynesian people (" not only because I consider such a convergence improbable which supposes also a somewhat astonishing parallelism of creative stages; but also on account of a large number of purely morphological circumstances.")

Imbelloni concludes as follows:

"The fact is that to this day nobody has ever faced the phenomenon in its integrity, because statements were based on a few discoveries, and more especially on North American ones, without taking South America into account; and some other writers dealt with the subject with much lightness, accepting commonplace explanations. The difficulty was avoided: now by bringing to bear the criterion of “convergence” in accidental inventions to a degree unsuitable even according to Bastian himself; now by impugning the veracity of the evidence of authors and writers of the last generation, as regards the specimens I have not been able to locate in the Museums; now by supposing that everything can be explained through a transposition of labels and objects in the glass-cases of ethnographical collections.
Against all these presumptions we have seen that the specimens found and collected by me, in these pages show unity and congruence.
To North America belong the following specimens: five standard patu onewa made of green and brown stone; two bodies of patu which very probably were of the onewa type; one argillite patu with a two-headed handle, similar to the Chatham specimens; three specimens of the miti model; and several patu paraoa, shaped according to the pattern of New Zealand.
To South America belong the following specimens: four patu onewa and two okewa.
The discoveries are located all along the Pacific Ocean zone in the northern continent, as well as in the southern.
The area of spatular weapons comprehends in North America: British Columbia and the States of Washington, Oregon and California. It is not necessary to assume that the origin of Nos. 4 and 5 from Michigan is apocryphal. A well-known track led the Indian tribes from the west to the Great Lakes region, by following the courses of the rivers. As for the southern steps, they form an uninterrupted chain along another beaten track, the way of the Uto-Aztec wandering—California-Arkansas-Mexico.
In South America the same element becomes visible in Peru and Araucania. It is interesting to note that the form of the patu onewa prevails toward the north and that of the okewa toward the south; let us note also the identity of type in the territories placed on both sides of the Cordillera de los Andes: the Argentine Nequén and the Chilian Province of Cautin, two areas connected by a corridor, whose ethnological content defines them as two communicating vessels.
Thus, the facts are connected by a natural logic that links them and throws light upon them all; and I am quite ready with profound admiration for those ethnologists who, with the preconceived idea of denying the migration of cultures from the Pacific to America, will be obliged to display much ingenuity in refuting, or cloaking with smoky clouds, the simple nature of the facts I have stated.
I beg of the reader not to forget that this paper contains only the American discoveries of the mere family stricto sensu, and no other. We must likewise consider in separate chapters.
(a) The derivatives proper to the New World, and especially the two foci of Nootka Sound and Araucanía, so plentiful with local variations.
(b) The quadrangular ceremonial axes which are toki tikitiki in Mangaia.
(c) The acclimatization in America of the whole Oceanic system of words, customs, and hierarchies connected with the word toki."

Sickle-shaped stone clubs, Polynesia and Limay, Patagonia. From Imbelloni J. (1930), Fig. 17

Alternative Explanations

Imbelloni mentions two of them: convergent creative styles in different cultures or misplaced labels on museum collection artifacts. There are more. See, for instance, Ivory, C. S. (1985). Northwest Coast Uses of Polynesian Art. American Indian Culture and Research Journal , 9(4). http://dx.doi.org/10.17953 Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2xk7z6b2).

Ivory argues that these artifacts in North America date from the late 18th century and are not older than 1778. During this period the natives living along the Pacific Northwest in the US and Canada (British Columbia, California, Oregon and Washington) were exposed to European goods and also to objects coming from Polynesia "especially those, such as the Tahitian gorget or the Marquesan club, which would enhance their status or prestige, or those like the Samoan club, which would be practical substitutes for implements in use in the culture. In both cases, the Native Americans sought not to change their culture, but to expand or enhance it through exotic, innovative or unusual objects. That these objects were Polynesian is not as important as the fact that they were both differentfrom and adaptable to Northwest Coast life."

Ivory also notes a pre-European⁄American contact through "the wreckage of Japanese vessels drifted on prevailing currents to the Northwest Coast some even with surviving crew members."

Imbelloni in his description of the Limay artifact pictured further up (See: Imbelloni, J. (1929). Un arma de Oceanía en el Neuquén. Reconstrucción y tipología del hacha del río Limay. Humanidades (La Plata, 1921) 20, 293-316. https://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/art_revistas/pr.2174/pr.2174.pdf), clearly states that he agrees with Juan Ambrossetti's 1908 publication about this same artifact, stating that "these American ceremonial weapons form part of the Polynesian culture."

The "Toki"

Imbelloni also noticed that the word "Toki" was used in Polynesia and among the Chilean Mapuche people to designate ceremonial axes or adzes. He wrote a paper about this (Imbelloni, "TÓKI" La primera cadena isoglosemática establecida entre las islas del Océano Pacífico y el Continente Americano, Revista de la Sociedad de Amigos de la Arqueología, 1931. V, 129-149):

"The phoneme toki extends unaltered from the eastern limit of Melanesia, through all the island groups of the Pacific, to the maritime territories of the two Americas, with a wide area of penetration into the interior of the northern continent, as well as the southern one, where the diffusion has followed the dual East and South direction, to the southern lands...
A more or less valuable part of the cultural heritage of the Native Americans is directly dependent on the migrations that the Pacific Islanders made to the west coast of America, fanning out from their last garlands of land, Hawaii in the North and the Marquesas, Paumotu, Rapa Nui in the South..."

Further reading

Juan B. Ambrosetti, Clava lítica, de tipo peruano, del territorio del Neuquen, en Anales del Museo Nacional de Buenos Aires, tomo XVII (1908), p.229-231.
José Miguel Ramírez Aliag, Contactos transpacíficos: un acercamiento al problema de los supuestos rasgos polinésicos en la cultura mapuche. ISSN 0716-0887, CLAVA 5 1992, Museo Sociedad Fonck, Viña del Mar - Chile

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©