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Voyaging Distance and Voyaging Time in Pacific MigrationAuthor(s): Robert Heine-GeldernSource: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 118, No. 1 (Mar., 1952), pp. 108-110Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with theInstitute of British Geographers)

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1791267Accessed: 23/06/2010 11:08

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108 CORRESPONDENCEnote that it was Hohnel who introduced chamois from the Emperor's huntinggrounds at Muerztag to the mountains of New Zealand.His next commission was the armoured cruiser St. George, in which he wasdespatched to New York. Eighteen months later he was appointed Commanderof the Sea Arsenal at Pola, and in May 1909 he retired from the service. Untilhis death he continued to take the keenest interest in Africa exploration and,when visited in Vienna in 1935, he spoke fluent English and had still a commandof Kiswahili. His hobby was to follow the movements and exercises of the RoyalNavy for which he had an unbounded admiration.With the death of Admiral Ritter Ludwig von Hohnel a link with the pastwas broken, for there were few who could still claim to have travelled in theAfrica of Livingstone and Stanley, at a time when the white man was still un-known to a majority of the native peoples. V. E. F.

CORRESPONDENCEVOYAGING DISTANCE AND VOYAGING TIME IN PACIFIC

MIGRATIONI wish to lodge a protest against the manner in which Heyerdahl, in his lastarticle in this yournal, has misquoted and misinterpreted my words.1Referring to me, he says: "It is to go too far to deduce, as he does, that ourwestward drift from Peru to Polynesia on a balsa raft establishes that a canoemust accordingly be able to travel eastward from Polynesia to Peru with thesame ease, and thence return to Polynesia again." I never said such a thing. Ofcourse, Heyerdahl's westward voyage does not prove that the Polynesians wereable to sail eastward, from Polynesia to America. It does however prove that,if Polynesians reached the coast of South America, return voyages were per-

fectly feasible, and that is what I said.2 It is so obvious a conclusion that itneeds no comment.Heyerdahl writes: "Since it is generally agreed among Polynesian scholarsthat the neolithic people who brought these blade types (i.e. the various typesof stone adzes) to Polynesia arrived in separate waves, roughly over a periodfrom 500 A.D. to 1300 a.d.,3 Heine-Geldern realizes the obvious chronological

difnculty in bringing them straight in from the contemporary Iron Age of theOld World. He suggests as an alternative that the Polynesians themselves havereached the Iron Age in Asia but that, after a migration through coral atolls,they would have lost all memory of metal work after fifty or sixty years. If theywere so forgetful, how then, we may ask, could they remember in Polynesiawhat specific stone adze types their long lost ancestors in China had manu-factured at a time even before they had used bronze or iron."

Were this a correct presentation of my views I would have to confess to havingwritten utter nonsense. What I really said was that neolithic cultures persistedin some parts of Indonesia until late in the Christian era and that, even where1Geogr. J. 117 (1951) 69-77.2 Geogr. J. 116 (1950) 190.3 There is, of course, no general agreement on this matter among scholars. I shalldeal with this subject elsewhere.


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CORRESPONDENCE IO9bronze or iron had become known, the use of stone tools continued for a con?siderable time. These are facts every prehistorian familiar with the region willbe able to confirm.1 I further pointed out that "it is not inconceivable that theancestors of the Polynesians, while still in Indonesia, might have come intocontact with metal-using peoples or might even themselves have used metalsto a certain extent." 2 This is quite different from suggesting "that the Poly?nesians themselves have reached the Iron Age in Asia." To imply that I hadsaid that they had given up the making of stone tools and ironically to ask howthe Polynesians, after having entered the Pacific, could have remembered"what specific stone adze types their long lost ancestors in China had manu-factured," is an irresponsible and unfair misrepresentation of what I hadwritten.

Heyerdahl again says: "Heine-Geldern suggests yet another explanation;iron was already in general use in Indonesia by the first or second century a.d.where, according to an earlier publication of his, it spread more rapidly thanHindu culture, and at the time of Polynesian migrations only isolated and back-ward savages had not acquired its use. It is from these isolated and backwardsavages that, we are now to infer, trans-Pacific voyagers set out, still with aStone Age culture, at this late date."I never said that iron was in general use in Indonesia in the first or secondcentury a.d. It certainly was not. The passage in my paper which Heyerdahlcites, reads as follows:"It is probable that its (i.e. iron's) general use started only after the establish-ment of the first Hindu colonies in the Archipelago (first or second centurya.d.?). However, it spread more rapidly than Hindu culture, and since manytribes in remote islands and in the interior of Borneo and Celebes remained out?side organized Hindu or Mohammedan rule and some of them continued to liveunder 'prehistoric' conditions as late as the beginning of this century, we maywell speak of a prehistoric Iron Age." 3I do not think that any person with a minimum of archaeological and ethno-logical knowledge could have misunderstood what I meant, i.e. that the generaluse of iron in Indonesia began only after the establishment of Hindu coloniesin the first or second century a.d.?but how long after the establishment ofthose colonies I did not say; nor do I, nor does any one else, know for certain.In regions immediately adjacent to those colonies iron may have been in generaluse within a few decades, while its spread to more distant areas took centuriesor, in certain instances, a millennium or more. HeyerdahPs assumption thatthose peoples of Indonesia who retained neolithic cultures until a late date musthave been "isolated and backward savages" who could not have migrated intoPolynesia, is, of course, totally unwarranted. There is no reason to assume thatthe higher type of late neolithic peoples in Indonesia were on a lower culturallevel than the Polynesians.

Heyerdahl further writes: "The pre-Inca graves contemporary with Tia?huanaco contain no bronze, iron, or other hard metals, whereas Heine-Geldernhimself once wrote of the megalithic graves in Indonesia he now seems to pro?pose as proto-Polynesian: 'All the stone cist graves of South Sumatra, Centraland East Java contained glass beads and metal, bronze, gold, copper, or iron.1Only recently have I learned from a missionary on the island of Flores, in theLesser Sunda Islands, that even today stone axes are still used there for felling thetrees set up as sacrificial posts in certain rituals.2 Geogr. y. 116 (1950) 186.3 Heine-Geldern, "Prehistoric research in the Netherlands Indies," in 'Science andscientists in the Netherlands Indies' (New York 1945), p. 148.


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110 CORRESPONDENCEThe same was the case in similar graves that have been investigated in the MalayPeninsula.' "

Here again Heyerdahl completely misrepresents what I wrote. I never pro?posed that the stone cist graves of Indonesia were "proto-Polynesian." On thecontrary, I distinguished between an earlier and a later megalithic culture,stating that the stone cist graves belong to the latter. I expressly pointed outthat this later megalithic culture never reached Oceania. Here are my words,which Heyerdahl either did not read or did not understand: "While the oldermegalithic culture spread over wide regions of Indonesia and from there toOceania, the area of the younger megalithic culture is much more restricted." l

Heyerdahl asserts that the megaliths of what he chooses to call "the easternfringe of Polynesia" are "far beyond the range of Assam and Java," therebycreating the impression that I had tried to link eastern Polynesia directly to Javaand Assam without taking into account the enormous distance which separatesthem. Actually, I had pointed out that a practically continuous megalithic areaextends from Assam to eastern Polynesia, a fact with which any person pretend-ing to solve the Polynesian problem ought to be familiar.3I cannot help feeling somewhat amused by Heyerdahl's holding up to me,as proof of the American origin of the Polynesians, what he calls the "EkholmExhibit." He means the exhibition, "Across the Pacific," set up on behalf ofthe American Museum of Natural History by Gordon Ekholm, Junius Bird andmyself on the occasion of the International Congress of Americanists, held inNew York in 1949. I can assure him that none of us three ever suspected thatwe had contributed any argument in support of his thesis of the Americanorigin of the Polynesians, but that, on the contrary, we were convinced that wehad proved Asiatic and Oceanic influences in pre-Columbian America.14 December i95r. RoBERT Heine-Geldern

CULTIVATION TERRACES IN NIGERIAIn the course of the discussion on Mr. Grove's paper on south-east Nigeriaas reported in the September issue of the Journal, the question of terraced

agriculture was raised. As Professor Stamp points out, terraces occur elsewherein Nigeria. They are to be found in many parts of the Jos Plateau, e.g. atPankshin, Hoss and in the Lere hills. Here though bold, the terracing is roughand only approximates to a contoured lay-out. Sometimes adjacent lines ofwalling coalesce, sometimes a line simply peters out, so that there is no regu-larity in either the width or slope of the terraces. Their height however is fairlyconstant at a matter of 2 or 3 feet in the cases known to the writer. He has beentold by the village schoolmaster of Lere that in his opinion terracing was not apractice learned from outside but one spontaneously developed by a peoplewho, cultivating rough hill-sides, had many stones to dispose of. The terraces,in his opinion, grew gradually; as stones were unearthed during hoeing theywere laid on one side. But soil creep banked the earth against them and madetheir utility obvious so that further stones, as they came to light, were added tothe rows and the terraces grew till stability was reached.Farther east, in the Gombe area, slightly higher and more regular terracesoccur on the hilly ground, but the most perfect development of terracing isfound in Dikwa Emirate in the Cameroons, under British Mandate, where the

1Heine-Geldern, "Prehistoric research in the Netherlands Indies," in 'Science andscientists in the Netherlands Indies* (New York 1945), p. 151.2 Geogr. y. 116 (1950) 188-189.

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