HEYERDAHIi'S KON-TIKI THEORY — JONKER 543 



(1954, pp. 220, 259), on the other hand, states that still unpublished 

 morphological and cytogenetic studies show that A. glauca is not 

 related either to A. mexicana or A. alha. In his opinion, it is a 

 Hawaiian endemic and an American element in the Hawaiian flora, 

 not man introduced and not identical with any American representa- 

 tive of the genus. He states (p. 259) : ". . . the American progeni- 

 tor of this Hawaiian species reached Hawaii by natural means long 

 before man appeared," and: "How long a period of isolation is 

 required to develop specific differentiation within this genus we do not 

 know." 



The other species deserving some attention is Heliconia hihai L. 

 (Musaceae), a well-known component of the tropical American pri- 

 meval and secondary forest. In pre-Columbian times the leaves of this 

 plant were already used as roofing, to make walls, hats, mats, and 

 for basket weaving. Here Heyerdahl refers to O. F. Cook ( 1904) , who 

 was of the opinion that the species for this reason was introduced 

 into Polynesia in prehistoric times. It maintained itself in the moun- 

 tains of Samoa and in some other islands, and became extinct elsewhere 

 in the region as its use by man died out, perhaps because Pandanus 

 leaves appeared to be more serviceable. Merrill (1954), on the other 

 hand, is of the opinion that the genus Heliconia has an originally 

 Antarctic distribution. As a matter of fact, the Heliconiae occurring 

 in the Moluccas, New Guinea, and some of the Polynesian islands do 

 not, as indicated by Schumann (1900) in his monograph of the family, 

 belong to H. hihai. They represent other species as recorded by Backer, 

 Bakliuizen van den Brink, Sr., and other botanists working in the 

 former Dutch East Indies. Moreover, as Merrill (1954, p. 306) states : 

 ''''Heliconia [&^A«^], once introduced and established in the tropics, is 

 one of those groups of plants that simply do not 'die out,' unless there 

 be a very radical change in climatic conditions." As a matter of fact, 

 the group that has been passing as H. hihai in botanical literature is 

 actually composed of numerous species, some of them very narrow 

 endemics. Furthermore the leaves of these species are frequently 

 utilized by the natives of Polynesia and Melanesia in their construc- 

 tion of temporary shelters. 



An ethnobotanical argument which Heyerdahl does not discuss in 

 his chapter on botany, but rather in his historical observations on old 

 navigators, is based on stories indicating that these early navigators 

 knew of a plant of which the leaves when chewed had the power to 

 quench tliirst and to make sea water potable. This property might 

 point to cocaine, and it is known that the early Peruvian Indians 

 chewed the leaves of coca {Erythroxylmn coca Lam.) against weari- 

 ness, thirst, and hunger. The old Polynesian legends also speak of the 

 addition of lime, and this might point to a parallel with the chewing 



