What Scholarly Research Can
Tell Us About The Jaredites
From the work of Thor Hierdahl, Hugh
Nibley, and others.
When the Book Of Mormon was first published, the
scholars of the day tried to pick it apart. The main
book that they liked to scoff at was the Book of
Ether.
On my mission to New York, there were still those
who scoffed at it. Let’s look at the questions they
raised.
1) What happens when two sides come to battle, ie., when is the war over?
(not just on the last war?)
2) Do they prefer to kill or capture the opposing king?
3) What do they do with a captured king?
4) What do the people do once their king is captured?
Why did they do this?
To understand them we need to understand
where they came from.
1) Where did they live, ie. where was the Tower of Babel?
2) When they left, which way did they go?
3) Where did they go from there?
Ether 2:1 (northward)
Similarities to Oriental Culture
Hugh Nibley said that the Jaredites came across
Asia and left for America somewhere around the
China Sea. One of the main reasons, was the
culture.
Let’s look at our questions again with how the
Oriental Culture would handle them.
1) What happens when two sides come to battle, ie., when is the war over?
(not just on the last war?)
What happens in the movie Mulan?
What about chess?
2) Do they prefer to kill or capture the opposing king?
3) What do they do with a captured king?
4) What do the people do once their king is captured?
But some LDS scholars shared
doubts
Some LDS scientist say it would have been too
inhospitable to have crossed Siberia, so could
they have really done it?
Science and the book of Ether together give us
the key.
Time Line
First we need to understand the time period
Noah and the flood - About 2300 BC
The tower of Babel - About 2150 BC
A difference of about 150 years.
How many times did the Jaredites build
ships and what does that question have to
do with the key?
Sometimes we get so caught up in the story about
the boats like a dish that we miss the first time
they build barges.
The scripture part of the key.
Ether 2:5-6
5 And it came to pass that the Lord commanded them that they should ago forth into
the wilderness, yea, into that quarter where there never had man been. And it came
to pass that the Lord did go before them, and did talk with them as he stood in
a bcloud, and gave cdirections whither they should travel.
6 And it came to pass that they did travel in the wilderness, and did abuild bbarges, in
which they did cross many waters, being directed continually by the hand of the
Lord.
7 And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the sea in the
wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the aland of promise,
which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God had bpreserved for a
righteous people.
According to science
there was a great sea
across Siberia that
has gradually
disappeared, a sign,
according to science,
of global warming
since a few millennia
BC. This would mean
from about the time of
Noah the sea faded
away until its last
traces disappeared in
about the 1980’s
Hugh Nibley believes they left around the China Sea up to the sea of Japan.
If they left from there, where would they travel?
For this we are going to turn
to the work of a man named
Thor Heyerdahl.
Thor Heyerdahl was a botanist
and zoologist who had become
one of the foremost
archeologists of South
America.
Wind and ocean flow to Polynesian
Islands always from East
Heyerdahl had been doing lots of work on
archeology in Peru and Ecuador. He went
on assignment to Polynesia to get plants
and was adopted by leader on island of
Fatu Hiva. It was while there he started
seeing the similarities and inconsistencies
with the theories of the time.
Trade Winds And Current
• It was Heyerdahl’s wife who first noticed
the wind always blew from the East while
on Fatu Hiva.
• Would take two years on current alone.
• Could not paddle against trade wind and
current and come from west.
Skin color and physical features
• The theories of the day had the
Polynesians coming from the West, since
it is very close. But Heyerdahl noted the
absolute difference from any of these
people in culture, skin, and features.
Legends (1)
• The Polynesians speak of coming from
mountain land to East (p.24), the Peruvians of
sending people West.
• The Peruvians and Polynesians have
legends of both brown and white men, and
white men with interesting hair (we’ll come
back to that), beards, and long ears
(unnatural).
• The God, Tiki (Kontiki) or Viracocha
Viracocha (Kontiki) (1)
• Sun God or God of sun or light or son of light.
One interpretation: “High priest of white man.”
• Statue for him same in Islands and Peru.
• Both people show him with a “rainbow belt”. (This
seems indicative of power.)
• Both traditions indicate white man had sun as
ancestor.
• Peru tradition says white and brown man.
Brown man eventually destroyed white man.
Viracocha (Kontiki) (2)
• Peruvians say white man built great monuments
and temples. Archeology shows more
sophisticated society the farther back you go in
archeology.
• Heyerdahl believed that after destruction of
white man, brown man intermingled white man’s
looks and stories with Peruvian deity, making the
white men out to be Gods, especially their
leader.
Heyerdahl proposed that people
from South America could have
settled Polynesia in the south
Pacific in Pre-Columbian times.
Heyerdahl’s Reasons (1)
• The accumulation of all evidence instead
of one or two fields. Most scientists of his
day would only look at evidence in their
field. Heyerdahl had expertise in many
fields. (Archeology, languages, botany,
culture, etc.)
• Wind and ocean flow to Polynesian
Islands always from East
• Skin color and physical features same
• Similar governments
Heyerdahl’s Reasons (2)
• Only the tools of South America matched
those of the islands. Tools are a big factor
in showing the growth of a culture.
• Same calendar (starting on almost exact
same day)
• Many of the same foods
• Most of all, many legends the same
Similar Foods of South America
and Polynesia
• Coconuts
• Sweet Potatoes (called Kumara in both South
America and islands). Polynesian tradition says
came over in “wood bound together” (raft)
• Gourds (called kimi in Polynesia and some older
South American cultures)
• None of above three can spread by floating as
suggested for seawater destroys
• Legend of Coca – plant that helped seasickness
and lack of water etc.
Heyerdahl proposed that people
from South America could have
settled Polynesia in the south
Pacific in Pre-Columbian times.
But no one would even consider
his hypothesis or the reasons
saying that it was impossible.
The only craft of that time were
rafts.
Against VS Explanation
• Claim: Peru’s archeology didn’t match.
Explanation: Heyerdahl explained and showed that the
Inca archeology did not match, but the older cultures
matched in the minutest detail, showing also the
expeditions were pre-Inca.
• Claim: No one could survive that distance and
especially not on the vessels of the day when the Pacific
destroyed many of our day.
Explanation: Heyerdahl could not get his book
published because of this claim. One man even said,
“Why don’t you build a raft and show it can be done.” So
Heyerdahl’s Kontiki voyage was to do just that, to show
that the assumptions of the day were false.
Problems finding out about early
vessels
• The Spanish had put an end to much of
the ways of the American Indians of South
America and much of what was known of
the water vessels was lost. However,
there were some pictures in archeology
digs, but even more in European drawings
of the conquest. But no one really knew
how to sail them. Some older cultures had
traditions and Heyerdahl gleaned all he
could from these sources.
• Kon-Tiki was the raft used by Norwegian explorer and
writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition. It was
named after the Inca Sun God, Viracocha, for whom
"Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. Kon-Tiki is also
the name of the popular book that Heyerdahl wrote
about his adventures.
Excursions and Destruction (1)
One of the biggest excursions, the one tied to a
man who might be called “Kontiki”, Heyerdahl
puts at around 500 AD. He calculates this by
chief’s ages and oral tradition.
The Peruvians have a tradition that the people of
“KonTiki” were pushed to two places. One
group was at Lake Titicaca and massacred
there.
The other group was pushed to the sea and built
rafts and escaped into the sea. (Note Peruvian cost was lined with
Balsa until end WW II when used in airplanes. Massacre and sea escape p. 25)
Excursions and Destruction(2)
Heyerdahl believed the group pushed into
the sea meant to go up the coast, but once
the rafts were pulled into the current they
went across the sea.
Excursions and Destruction (3)
• Heyerdahl believed a second excursion,
probably occurred around 1100 AD (also seen
1300 AD on Internet). This one he felt was
possibly in reed ships. He felt at this time the
brown man on the islands was destroying the
white man on the islands and perhaps this group
that set out at this time period carried
animosities that helped expedite this destruction
by joining with the brown men that were already
on the islands.
Excursions and Destruction (4)
Heyerdahl believed there might have been
another excursion, near 0 AD. His
reasoning was that there seemed to be a
tradition that there was a time when the
white man and brown man worked
together on the islands. This came from
very old island traditions and some from
South America.
Something else interesting
• There is something else very interesting
that Thor Hyerdahl tells us the archeology
tells about many of the white men of South
America and the islands of the Pacific.
But in particular, their leaders had a very
telling characteristic.
Red Hair Of
Statues
Red stone hauled from
quarry far from others. This
is done on many statues on
islands as well as in South
America.
Easter Island is also called by
Poynesians “Navel” or “Birth” island.
Some translations mean “look to
heaven” or “look to home” and it is the
first island, or closest island to South
America, in the Polynesian cluster.
One place on Peruvian coast, near
where they may have left from is
called “Eye of Heaven”.
Picture of statues on Easter Island
Seldom Discussed Fact
• Peruvians say, many whites had red hair
(flame). P.24
• and Note: Egyptian archeology.
• Legends on islands talk of men with red hair. (P. 182183) Easter Island statues made that way.
• Still some remote islands with white, red and
blond haired islanders.
• Islands (mostly just Easter Island) have tradition
of hatred and destruction of white man by brown.
• Oral traditions say original Easter Islanders
white and destroyed by Brown.
So what does
this all tell us
about the travel
of the Jaredites
Pacific Ocean
Currants
(Note also Lehi’s
path and path of
Jaredites)
Currents
away from
South
American
coast and
Kontiki
path.
A couple of extra questions
• What was the race of the Jaredites?
• What about their total destruction?
End of main
presentation,
following are
extra
Writing Similarities
Most of the writing that have survived were on the
islands with statues, mainly those with red rock hair
(like Easter Island). Both the hieroglyphics and
knot writing are similar to South America.
Easter Island
hieroglyphics.
Legends (2)
• Tradition in both groups of white man
(some with red hair – and ears made
unnaturally long as well as beards) and
total destruction by brown man
• Heyerdahl suggests at least two
excursions and possibly three.
Making the raft
authentic
Support came from explorers club.
• Heyerdahl and his team
worked to make everything
on the raft authentic,
except the radio
equipment (and a chest for
each man). Even the
lanterns, and food
containers were what was
assumed would have been
there at the time.
Kontiki Expedition Concerns (1)
• Concern: They were concerned about
the sap in the balsa trees making it too
heavy and/or soaking up too much water,
and the raft sinking.
• Result: 9 trees green, 2 dry. The green
saved them, sap forced out moisture, the
dry sank. (Note 500 AD expedition would have had
green trees)
Kontiki Expedition Concerns (2)
• Concern: Rafts put together with rope would
wear through with rubbing, ropes would slide off
in storms, etc.
• Result: Instead rope worked way into soft
balsa, making them not slip off, though they had
to be tightened. (When they crashed onto an
island, the natives their laughed at their lashings
and showed them better ways that they had
known for centuries.
Kontiki Expedition Concerns (3)
• Concern: How would they carry enough water?
• Result: Heyerdahl knew they could capture rain
water. In addition he had learned that they
anciently filled huge (about 4” diameter) bamboo
poles with water and sealed them with tar and
would float tied under raft for added buoyancy
and take no space. (And would actually have
been sufficient for journey) Finally, in desperate
situations they could squeeze liquid out of fish.
Also drinking a little seawater to include some
salt helped.
Kontiki Expedition Concerns (4)
• Concern: How could they carry enough food?
• Result: They took dried meats, coconuts, and
sweet potatoes. Heyerdahl assumed that they
would be able to go fishing, but he found they
didn’t even have to. When they lighted a lantern
at night fish jumped on board and when water
disappeared through logs it acted a a net. (They
still fished for variety.)
Kontiki Expedition Concerns (5)
• Concern: How would they steer a raft? All
sailors claimed that without a hull, a raft would
swirl and turn and could not be turned into the
wind nor steered at all.
• Result: At first Heyerdahl and his crew rigged a
rudder like modern Peruvians. They learned
how to steer with it, but it was hard. He knew
ancient tradition told of “center boards”, but no
one knew how to use them. He and his team
learned by accident that boards up and down in
center of raft changed it’s course and were easy
to use.
Kontiki Expedition Concerns (6)
• Concern: In the huge swells of the Pacific,
many ships would be snapped or flooded with
water and sink. A raft would not take the swells
and be swamped.
• Result: Because water rolled through the logs
there was nothing to fill (like a ship would have)
making it impossible to swamp and it rolled up
and down the waves with ease. In essence, it
did better than a modern ship would.
Overall Facts
• Heyerdahl and a small team went to Peru, where
they constructed a balsa wood raft out of balsa
logs and other native materials in an indigenous
style (as recorded in illustrations by Spanish
conquistadores). This trip began on April 28,
1947. Accompanied by five companions,
Heyerdahl sailed it for 101 days over 4,300
miles across the Pacific before smashing into
the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on
August 7, 1947. The only modern equipment
they had was a radio.
Crew
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Kon-Tiki was crewed by six men, all Norwegian except for Bengt
Danielsson, who was from Sweden.
Thor Heyerdahl was expedition leader.
Erik Hesselberg was the navigator and artist. He painted the large Kon-Tiki
figure on the raft's sail.
Bengt Danielsson took on the role of steward, in charge of supplies and
daily rations. Danielsson was a sociologist interested in human migration
theory. He also served as translator, as he was the only member of the
crew who spoke Spanish.
Knut Haugland was a radio expert, decorated by the British in World War II
for actions in the Norwegian heavy water sabotage that stalled Germany's
plans to develop an atomic bomb.
Torstein Raaby was also in charge of radio transmissions. He gained radio
experience while hiding behind German lines during WWII, spying on the
German battleship Tirpitz. His secret radio transmissions eventually helped
guide in Allied bombers to sink the ship.
Herman Watzinger was an engineer whose area of expertise was in
technical measurements. He recorded meteorological and hydrographical
data while underway.
Construction
• The main body of the raft was composed of nine balsa tree trunks up to
13.7 metres (45 feet) long, 60 cm (2 feet) in diameter, lashed together with
3.175 cm (1¼ inch) hemp ropes. Cross-pieces of balsa logs 5.5 m (18
feet) long and 30 cm (1 foot) in diameter were lashed across the logs at 1
m (3 feet) intervals to give lateral support. Pine splashboards clad the
bow, and lengths of pine 2.5 cm (1 inch) thick and 60 cm (2 feet) long were
wedged between the balsa logs and used as centerboards.
• The main mast was made of lengths of mangrove wood lashed together to
form a A-frame 8.8 m (29 feet) high. Behind the main-mast was a cabin of
plaited bamboo 4.25 m (14 feet) long and 2.4 m (8 feet) wide was built
about 1.2-1.5 m (4-5 feet) high, and roofed with banana leaf thatch. At the
stern was a 5.8 m (19 feet) long steering oar of mangrove wood, with a
blade of fir. The main sail was 4.6 m by 5.5 m (15 by 18 feet) on a yard of
bamboo stems lashed together. Photographs also show a top-sail above
the main sail, and also a mizzen-sail, mounted at the stern.
• The raft was partially decked in split bamboo. No metal was used in the
construction
Stores
• The Kon-Tiki carried 250 liters of water in
bamboo tubes. For food they took 200
coconuts, sweet potatoes, bottle gourds
and other assorted fruit and roots. The
Quarter-masters Department of the US
Army provided field rations, tinned food,
and survival equipment. In return, the KonTiki explorers reported on the quality, and
utility of the provisions. They also caught
plentiful numbers of fish, particularly flying
fish, dolphin, yellowfin tuna and shark.
The Voyage
• The Kon-Tiki left Callo, Peru, on the afternoon of April
28, 1947. It was initially towed 50 miles out to open
water by the Fleet Tug Guardian Rios of the Peruvian
Navy. She then sailed roughly west carried along on the
Humboldt Current. Their first sight of land was the atoll of
Puka-Puka on July 30. They made brief contact with the
inhabitants of Angatau Island on August 4, but were
unable to land safely. Three days later, on August 7, the
raft struck a reef and was eventually beached on an
uninhabited islet off Raroia Island in the Tuamotu group.
They had traveled a distance of around 3,770 nautical
miles (c.6980 km) in 101 days, at an average speed of
1.5 knots.
Anthropology (1)
While this was an interesting experiment that demonstrated the
seaworthiness of Heyerdahl's raft, his theory of the Polynesians'
origins is now widely discounted by anthropologists. Physical and
cultural evidence had long suggested that Polynesia was settled
from west to east, migration having begun from the Asian mainland,
not South America. In the late 1990’s, genetic testing found that the
mitochondrial DNA of the Polynesians is more similar to people from
southeast Asia than to people from South America, showing that
their ancestors most likely came from Asia. It should be noted,
however, that Heyerdahl claimed the race that settled Polynesia
from South America was a white race that was distinct from the
South Americans, and had in fact been driven from those shores.
Therefore, it would be expected that the DNA of the Polynesians
would be dissimilar to that of South Americans. The Kon-Tiki
adventure is often cited as a classic of pseudoarcheology, although
its daring and inventive nature is still widely acclaimed.
Anthropology (2)
• Thor Heyerdahl never set out to prove that the current
Polynesians were descended from South America.
According to Heyerdahl, some Polynesian legends say
that Polynesia was originally inhabited by two peoples,
the so-called long-eared and the short-eared. In a bloody
war, all the long-eared peoples were eliminated and the
short-eared people assumed sole control of Polynesia.
Heyerdahl asserted that these extinct people were the
ones who could have settled Polynesia from the
Americas, not the current, short-eared inhabitants.
However one of the problems with this argument is that
traditions involving long-ears and short-ears are found
only at Easter Island, and are unknown in the rest of
Polynesia.
Anthropolgy(3)
• Heyerdahl further argues in his book American Indians In The Pacific
that the current inhabitants of Polynesia did indeed migrate from an
Asian source, but via an alternate route. He proposes that Filipino
natives (whom Heyerdahl asserted held cultural and physical affinities
with Polynesians) traveled with the wind along the North Pacific current.
These migrants then arrived in British Columbia. Heyerdahl points to the
contemporary tribes of British Columbia, such as the Tlingit and Haida,
as the descendants of these migrants. Again Heyerdahl notes the
cultural and physical similarities between these British Columbian tribes,
Polynesians, and the Old World source. Heyerdahl notes how simple it
would have been for the British Columbians to travel to Hawaii and even
onward to the greater Polynesia from their New World stepping-stone by
way of wind and current patterns. Heyerdahl's claims aside, however,
there is no evidence that the Tlingit, Haida or other British Columbian
tribes have any special affinity with Filipinos or Polynesians.
Linguistically, their morphologically complex languages are about as far
from Austronesian and Polynesian languages as it is possible to be, and
their cultures evince their undeniable links to the rest of the peoples of
North America.
• The book Kon-Tiki was a best-seller, and a
documentary motion picture of the
expedition won an Academy Award in
1951.
• The original Kon-Tiki is now on display in
the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo
Notes of Interest
• Island where they crashed saw Kontiki
image and translated by one and were
afraid. Old man said ancestors came from
Pura which in their language was “Land
where the sun rises.”
•
•
•
•
•
It was parodied in an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures called Kon-Ducki. It featured Plucky Duck
as Pluck Heyerdahl, Hamton J. Pig as his assistant Koom-bye-ah, and Sweetie Pie. Pluck
attempts to prove that he is able to, like his ancestors from the 1970s, sail on a raft apparently
filled with ABBA 8-tracks and Screaming Yellow Zonkers and make it to Salinas, California.
In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, "Explorers," Benjamin Sisko and his son go on a
solar sailing voyage on a spacecraft based on ancient Bajoran design to see if an old tale of a
Bajoran successfully sailing to Cardassia was possible.
It is the book Holly reads to Kit in their treehouse in Terrence Malick's Badlands.
[edit] Tangaroa Expedition
On April 28, 2006, a Norwegian team attempted to duplicate the Kon-Tiki voyage using a newlybuilt raft, the Tangaroa, named after the Māori sea-god Tangaroa. Again based on records of
ancient vessels, this raft used relatively sophisticated square sails that allowed sailing into the
wind, or tacking.[1] It was 16m long by 8m wide. It also included a set of modern navigation and
communication equipment, including solar panels, portable computers, and desalination
equipment. The crew posted to their web site, www.tangaroa.no. The crew of six was led by
Torgeir Higraff, and included Olav Heyerdahl, grandson of Thor Heyerdahl. The voyage was
completed successfully in July 2006 and a documentary film is forthcoming.
Places to find information
• http://www.kon-tiki.no
• http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications
/books/?bookid=59&chapid=
• Book “Kontiki” by Thor Heyerdahl