Word: tahiti
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...equatorial current and the southeast trade wind took over and pushed the raft due west across the Pacific. Drifting 40 to 50 miles a day, it was now well ahead of schedule and had covered more than half of the distance (5,000 miles) between Callao and its goal, Tahiti...
...Tiki reaches Tahiti or the Marquesas, leader Thor Heyerdahl will claim to have proved his favorite anthropological theory: that ancient Peruvians in original-model balsas may have covered the same route many centuries...
...leader of the expedition, Thor Heyerdahl, 32, had been to Tahiti in 1937 to finish a doctorate thesis in zoology. Like other scholars before him, he was struck by resemblances between the cultures of Polynesia and South America. Both regions have "stepped" pyramids, "megalithic" structures, elaborate feather-work. Both cultivate sweet potatoes and call them by names which closely resemble their ancient Peruvian name: kumara. The strange stone heads on Easter Island look a great deal like some sculpture in Peru...
...Tiki. After the war, Heyerdahl gathered around him a group of his countrymen, most of them veterans of Norway's underground, and led them to Peru. There they were joined by a Swedish anthropologist. Their daring plan: to sail to Tahiti. 5,000 miles from Callao. If they make Tahiti safely, the world's anthropologists will have to admit that ancient Peruvians could have done...
...voyage to Tahiti, Heyerdahl estimates, will take about 140 days. The Peru current will carry the balsa northward up the coast. Then the east wind and the "south equatorial current" will waft it across the Pacific. For entertainment while they drift, the Norwegians are taking along a guitar...