Page 232 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

from half-type mitochondria (female genetic cell) and Y chromosome (male genetic cell)
showed that the Polynesians were descended from the inhabitants of Southeast Asia and
Taiwan, mixed with the people from Melanesia5.
Based on the evidence from artifacts and historical linguistics, Peter Bellwood6
explained the ethnogenesis of the nations inhabiting the region bounded by Madagascar-
Easter Island and Taiwan-New Zealand. All the people there originated from a Taiwanese
homeland around 3,000 BC and migrated to the south and west reaching Indonesia
between 1,500 and 500 BC. The Polynesian islands were populated by further migrations
from Melanesia. The peopling of the Pacific proceeded. Easter Island was inhabited in 900
AD, and Hawaii in 900 AD. The last place in the Pacific region to be inhabited was New
Zealand in 1,200 AD.
Research based on genetics, archeology and linguistics shows that the Polynesians
came from Southeast Asia and Melanesia. There are differences of opinion about the
details of the dispersals. However there is strong rejection of the idea proposed by Thor
Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer, in his famous book “Kon-Tiki Ekspedisjonen”—1948,
Gylendal Norsk Forlag, which suggested that the Polynesians did not come from the west
or southwest but from the east, from Peru, South America (Heyerdahl, 1950).
Thor studied about the legend of Peru about Virakocha, the King of Sun, who was
the leader of the whites in Peru who had become extinct. Virakocha was Kon-Tiki or Illa-
Tiki. Kon-Tiki was the highest priest and the king of sun for the whites in Peru who had
left the relics of the buildings along Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world located
in Andes Mountains by a war. The legend showed that Kon-Tiki was attacked by another
leader named Cari who came from Coquimbo valley. In a fight in an island, in Lake Titicaca,
many Peruvian whites were killed, but Kon-Tiki with his closest men succeeded in running
away and getting across Pacific Ocean then disappeared in the west. Thor found that the
inhabitants of the islands in Polynesia worshipped their main god called Tiki, son of the sun,
whom they believed as the founder of their race. The event was considered by Heyerdahl
to have happened around 1,100 AD.
Therefore, in order to prove his hypothesis, Thor, together with five of his men, sailed
by using a raft made from nine logs of balsa wood taken from Lake Titicaca in Andes
Mountains. This courageous expedition was named Kon-Tiki Expedition, and so was the
raft. Thor sailed from Calloo, near Lima, Peru to Tuamotu islands near Tahiti in Polynesia
on April 28-August 27, 1947, cruising along 8,000 km and succeeded in reaching the
destination safely by making use of Humboldt current from east to west.

232 Chapter 5

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