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 © 

Molina on the "engraved stones": Oceanian (Polynesians) in Patagonia

In the past, I have posted (see below for some links to these posts) about the strange engraved stones that were discovered in different parts of Chubut province, Patagonia, during the 20th century, and which were sent to the Salesian Museum in Rawson (their Facebook page), Chubut, and are exhibited there. See these pictures from their Facebook, they show the "engraved stones": Picture 1, Picture 2.

In his book "Patagonica" (online here), Father Manuel Jesús Molina mentions these stones and includes them as plates in his publication. Below are these images and his original captions are translated in each image's caption-

But first, let's read his interpretation of these engraved stones:

"Sculpture style - They are works executed in counter- and bas-relief on stone slabs of very different materials: granodiorite, granite, compact basalt, marble, sandstone, quartz pophyry. They have sulpted human figures seen from the front, and profile, animals, and birds, sometimes forming scenes; weapons and work tools; signs can be seen in the inscriptions that appear to be letters, the phases of the moon, and a symbolic sign that give mental uniformity to the works. In general they have a frame of lines or frets... Decorated (or not), axes and the oquewa [sic] belong to it... With this style is the engraved ceramic of Patagonia, especially in Chubut. The Rawson Museum preserves a slab of stone on which they have reproduced in basrelief different shapes of ceramic objects with their respective decorations. With them, came the engraved plaques, done many times on soft materials like volcanic tuffs. All this makes us suppose that this style is of oceanic origin as shown by the symbolic cross-shaped sign of its bearers. The painted skulls of San Blas would also belong to it, which bear the same magical sign that is seen among the oceanic creatures of the Marquesas Islands, and is engraved on the back of the mythical lizard and painted in red in a dotted circle at Punta Gualicho, in Lake Argentino. An old Alakulup tradition says that long ago, some very bad men arrived in large canoes. Their bodies were painted with large stripes, and they killed everyone they encountered. Surely, their gateway must have been Puerto Aysén; they must have crossed the Andes through Coyhaique and reached Lake Colue Huapi via the Mayo and Senguerr rivers, where they established their settlement. There they mixed with the Patagonians and reached the coast, which they traveled as far as the Paraná River, where they formed the Canals Frau Littoral Group. It can be dated to around 500 AD."

The Engraved Stones and their Captions

From Molina's book Patagónica Figures 70 to 79:

70 - Sculpture style: small bust whose pedestal exhibits sculpted emblems on its four faces - Salesian Museum of Rawson No. 737
71 - Sculpted art: small bust with an engraved pedestal with emblems on its four faces - Salesian Museum of Rawson No. 737

72- Three sculptures: in th emiddle, a "Mature Mere" with sculpted effigy and signs of 27x9 cm; to the left a trapezoidal slab of prophyrite of 26x19 cm with ostriches and their chicks; to the right a basaltic stone of 23x18 cm with an indigenous effigy and its emblems - Salesian Museum of Rawson, N. 752, 738, 751

73- Boulder with the figure of a strange animal represented with only two legs, inscription, emblems and frets - Salesian Museum of Rawson, No.742

74 - Three sculptures: in the middle a porphyrite axe of 20x14 cm found in chullucurá; to the right, cross with double border and emblems, in white marble of 14x12x4 cm found in Puerto Visser; to the left, oval with the portrait of a native, 15x12 cm - Salesian Museum of Rawson, N. 748, 746, 747

75 - Guanaco that looks at you on dark shale of 43x36 cm, with various emblems, the condor and a serpent. - Salesian Museum of Rawson, No. 743

76 - Black basalt slab of 54x29 cm with a perimetral border: a collection of naitve artifacts and emblems: the hunter wears a loincloth. - Salesian Museum of Rawson, No. 736

77- Various artifacts and emblems

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

79- Oceanic artifacts: 1. Okewa, of 27x13x3.6 cm (n. 204); 2. Okewa, of 18.5x 10.6x2 cm (n. 1297); 3. Triangular axe, of 18x14.5x2 cm (n. 1300). - Fancisco de Viedma Museum, Patagones

Okewa

When Molina mentions "Oceanic" he is referring to the Polynesians. The "oquewa" ini the text (sic) and "okewa" pictured above are the words used to designate polished rock clubs used by certain Polynesian groups such as the Maoris of New Zealand. They can also be found under different names, and made in wood, in different islands across the Polynesia.

In a future post we will look into the ceremonial clubs found in the Americas that hint at a Polynesian link or visit to the New World.

Visitors from the West

Molina mentions an ancient myth of the Alakaluf about canoes full of men painted with stripes that murdered their people. These myths could refer to European ships or expeditions from Chile southwards along the Pacific coastline which usually ended up with the Europeans killing the natives. A big canoe could equally be a Polynesian vessel or a European caravel or galleon. Bodies painted with large stripes could refer to clothes (the Alakaluf people just wore some seal skins).

My previous posts on these stones

The "Phoenician" stones were definitively not made by native Tehuelche or Mapuche people, they are very different. And we can therefore conclude that they are either:

• Fake. A forgery, a hoax. That is: someone deliberately crafted these stones with "native" motifs, with the intention of making them appear as authentic native or Phoenician crafts (hence the use of Semitic letters), to sell them to gullible amateur archaeologists.
• Genuine, made by some non-native people like European settlers. By genuine I mean that the persons who made them, did so for some religious, cultural, social reason, and left them behind when they returned to their homeland or disappeared (famine, illness, war). Probably some were made and sold for a profit, to fool those who bought them believing they were genuine native handicrafts.

The posts on these stones:
Tehuelche rock inscriptions. Comparison to "Phoenician" stones.
Phoenicians, Tehuelches, Patagonia and cryptozoology - Part 1 where I asked if "are they genuine or are they forgeries? If genuine, were they carved by the Tehuelche natives? or by someone else?"
Genuine Tehuelche "inscribed or engraved" stones
Analysis of Tehuelche - Phoenician - Celtic (?) intertwined snakes : Strange snakes of alleged Celtic or Phoenician origin found engraved on Patagonian rockss. Native or Semitic - Celtic art?
Cryptid on Phoenician - Tehuelche carving, a cryptid on a Tehuelche engraved stone with Phoenician symbols. (" a very peculiar stone which differs from the standard native artistic expression.")
Phoenicians and Hebrews in Pre-Columbian Patagonia

An Article on the Stones

The issue No. 171, of Argentina Austral, published in September 1945, (online here, see p.12) included an article "¿Eran nómades o sedentarios los Tehuelches?" (Were the Tehuelche nomads or sedentary?) by Father Justo M. Ducco. In it, he discusses these engraved stones, and includes more photographs of them, including more samples such as a tortoise in pink granite (pictured below).

The article mentions the stone sculptures as follows (In it, Ducco, interviews Father Antonio F. Fernández, principal of the Rawson Salesian School, which served at that time as the "museum"):

"But what gives this Museum its unique character is the "Archaeological Collection," with its lithoglyphs that intrigue the observer. A dozen or more granite-porphyry plaques, exquisitely engraved in relief, with heads of indigenous people, animals of the region, tools, symbols, and probable inscriptions, surrounded by a geometric border like a fretwork. The stone chosen for these works is solid and fine-grained; diverse in color and composition. And there is an exception, a small marble plaque less than two square decimeters in diameter. [2 dm = 200cm² = 31 sq.in.] The engraving, or at least its retouching, was executed by percussion with pointed stones, with the patience necessary to achieve impeccable forms and surfaces. Father Fernández tells me that other visitors, more or less dedicated to archaeological matters, expressed their fears that these lithoglyphs may have been brought from Peru in ancient times; or perhaps they are local works by European carvers. I spoke at length with the Father; we examined the plaques and other similar works repeatedly, including a small bust of an indigenous person; we exchanged opinions, suppositions, difficulties, and arguments; and finally, we synthesized our shared opinion in several statements, which I present and elaborate upon here.
1°) The objects are heavy, some of the plaques weighing up to thirty kilos, and the Father has seen some of even greater proportions. We therefore dismiss the suspicion of allochthonous origin, taking into consideration that during the time of their long migrations, the indigenous people lacked vehicles that would have allowed them to carry more than the bare necessities.
2°) Regarding the hypothesis of the European origin of these sculptures, we note first that not all of them contain a single example of an exotic theme. If Europeans had engraved or simply directed the engravings, they would have imprinted their concerns as foreigners on them.
3°) Nor does the horse appear among the animal figures, which can only be explained by accepting that these are productions from a time before the arrival of the Spaniards to our shores; since with the first founding of Buenos Aires, the wild cattle descended from the escaped or abandoned cattle already began to spread towards the pampas.
4°) None of the plaques have a symmetrical face, even if only approximately. Their creators were aware of symmetry, as evidenced by the perfection with which they reproduced the Indian heads seen frontally in low relief, with their fringed headbands and geometrically arranged necklaces; likewise, the turtles, arrows, and other naturally symmetrical motifs. But they were not concerned with symmetry as European or Europeanized artists were; therefore, the outline of the work, traced by a simple fretwork, and the distribution of the figures, lack intentional symmetry.
5°) The works show the work of different hands, as can be seen from the compositions, the details of their execution, and even more so from the fact that the sculptures were found in different, very distant locations. At first glance, the themes might seem repetitive, were it not for the fact that the objects typical of the Patagonian moorland were specifically few: rheas, guanacos, pumas, snakes, lizards, the sun, the four phases of the moon... and add to that two almost indispensable symbols: arrows, such as those found in the riding arenas in their most common and elegant form; and another symbol that leaves us intrigued: Something like a uniform club or a bundle of rods, with two radiating bows or ties, also uniform and without a terminal notch, the whole of which resembles a crude schematization of a lizard's body seen from above. To these elements of the sculptural compositions, we must add several small signs that appear to be hieroglyphs. And there is precisely one plaque that contains about twenty of them, as if it were a mnemonic or learning manual.
6°) It will be objected that, since these were "nomadic" Indians, we cannot attribute to them the perfection displayed by the carvers of these stones."

Next Post: Okewa in the Americas

In a future post I will explore the presence of these okewa in the Americas.

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