Who is America

A study of Identity
Kanook – 2007

What began as a casual search across the Internet, has slowly morphed into a
database that is not only comprehensive, but full of controversy and enough
“further researched needed” to choke a T-Rex. Traditionally some of us (which is
most of us) really don’t give a hoot about our ancestors, too busy trying to decipher
the everyday news and events taking place just beyond our fingertips as we read
the news daily from around the world, accessible through this technology we have
labeled the World Wide Web. Albeit a wonderful tool we are learning that it is no
different than any other source we have used over the years, in that any search will
reveal many different opinions, some detailed and others vague and misleading –
the only difference being they are instantly accessible and being in print we tend to
accept some of the falsehoods, and if they are technically beyond our everyday
knowledge, we ignore. As the news media has learned years ago, as a race we
accept the flash (shock and awe) more than we do the facts. Even the authors (and
public relation groups) of long-ago realized that to grab the imagination (attention)
of the masses one needed to spin the tale further and further up into the world of,
“did you see that!”, and as time weaves its way through our daily lives this simple
fact remains.

In my research I found the traditional accepted theory on the populating of the

North and South American land mass, the one where our ancestors followed the
game across the steppes of Siberia to a new hunting ground around 11,500 years
ago. I have always had a difficult time with this reasoning, one reason being the
world as we learned was not heavily populated at the time (and I think game
outnumbered the hunters), and as for the climate was changing, the region from
what they were leaving (if the world hadn’t tilted on its axis) to travel to was not
much different than where they left. And as for them moving just because suddenly
a land bridge existed in a place where water used to be, that too is a thin argument.
But nevertheless this theory is the strongest one today, although late coming
information is demonstrating that maybe some of our ancestors floated on a log or
two and made the journey from Asia to here or from Africa to South America.

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The map below shows the land bridge supposedly at the peak of the last ice age
around 18,000 years-ago; where the sea level is
estimated to have been lower than 100 meters (328’) of
its present day level. Holding true to the single source
theory, from Out of Africa, it can be said that is true that
Native American’s made some type of crossing from Asia,
where exactly in Asia has now become a controversial
subject. Some research suggests there were up to four-
separate migrations, while yet some research holds with
the single migration theory.

From the map on the right (North

America Center) you’ll notice
that there are “3” routes defined, the
bottom one is the coastal route,
center on is over the land bridge
and I’m assuming the other the
same.

One of the major hurdles that all

researches are coming up against
is the fairly new data that is surfacing concerning the timing of all these migrations.
Archeology sites during the past 20 years (or less) have produced findings that pre-
date the Clovis site by at least 10,000 years (if not more). Scholars from far and
wide are shifting through artifacts and DNA samples, some new and some ancient in
their combined effort to establish a certain date of the peopling of America.

The old theory that our ancestors traveled from Siberia to Alaska and followed
an “ice-free” corridor between the two large Canadian ice sheets, the Laurentide
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentide_ice_sheet) and the Cordilleran
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordilleran_ice_sheet) ice sheets to reach ice-free lands
to south is not in jeopardy but is now accompanied by others not so accepted
theories.

Very convincing evidence has surfaced (no pun indented) of human habitation
that date earlier than the Clovis culture [11,200 years ago] in South America.

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Monte Verde (http://www.unl.edu/rhames/monte_verde/MonteVerde.htm), a much
studied site located near southern Chile, which dates over 12,500 years ago, where
dwellings, stone tools, and preserved medicinal and edible plants were found. This
find, alone, brings into question, how did the people manage to settle this far south
(if we follow the traditional “thru the ice theory”) as such an early date? One of the
many reasons that a “coastal” migration route is now gaining some acceptance,
rather than the walking across the land bridge and ending up in South American
1,300 years before you left Siberia. This emerging evidence suggests that people
with boats moved along the Pacific coast at least 12,500 years ago (and maybe
earlier), where other archaeological finds in Australia, Melanesia, and Japan indicate
the use of boats as far back as 25,000 to 40,000 years ago. Because of the low-
level of the Pacific (on average 328’ less than today) they settled in some sites that
are well below the present day shoreline, and yet searchers have found several
sites in Canada, California, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile that date between 10,000 and
12,000 years ago.

Clovis culture has not taken a back-seat through all of this, whereas comparisons
have been made to their culture and similar finds in the eastern portion of the
United States (Cactus Hill, Virginia) in the same time period that compare to the
Clovis people. Scientists find no technological affinities in relating Clovis to Asian
Paleolithic cultures. However, it is found that Europe may have some links to the
Clovis, where it is found this culture is similar to the “Solutrean” culture
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean) which surfaced in the Macon district of
eastern France, dated about 19,000 years BCE. The Solutrean culture takes its
name from the village of “Solutre” in southwest France, where in addition to
locations in Spain and Portugal lithic techniques were found in abundance that
compared to the Clovis connection in New Mexico.

Ancient skeletal remains show a “range” of physical attributes suggesting

“separate” migrations of different populations of modern humans from Asia. Of the
old remains found as a group their skulls differ markedly, from the broad faces,
prominent cheekbones, and round cranial features that characterize the modern-
day Native Americans. Two come to mind that have long and narrow cranial vaults
with short and relatively gracile faces, the Spirit Cave Man from Nevada and the
recently discovered Kennewick Man found in Washington State. Both these finds

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created a stir amongst the Native populations that lead to many (of the Natives)
protesting the examination of the skulls once again falling back on the old saw of
disturbing the graves of their elders. My opinion, they were afraid that someone
else might take the forefront on the migration list of people to the New World, and
to these narrow minded people this was not acceptable.

Kennewick Man skull found along the banks of the Columbia

River at Kennewick, WA on July 28th, 1996 by two young men,
quickly became a 9,200 year old skull that ignited an
abundance of controversy both in the anthological and Native
world. The U.S. Corp of Engineers has taken possession of the
skeleton, only after publishing their intent to repatriate the
remains to an alliance of five tribes, Umatilla, Yakima, Nez
Perce, Wanapum and the Colville – suits were filed as far away as a traditional
European religious group of the Asutru Folk Assembly demanding their right to
determine if this individual was their ancestor. The Umatilla, who have taken lead
on the issue, intend immediate reburial in a “secret” location. As of December 7th,
2006 his remains had been examined for any exposure damage in their storage
place at the Burke Museum in Seattle, they want to reassure everyone that the
bones are still in good shape.

Spirit Cave Man was unearthed on August 11th, 1940 by

Georgia and S.M. Wheeler in a cave located on a bluff
in the Carson Sink area, near where the Pleistocene
Lake Lahontan used to be. In this west facing cave,
that was no more than 5’ high, 25’ wide and barely 15’
deep they began their search. Under about 1’ of
material they found a large mat, very finely twined,
with a warp of split tules and the weft of native hemp
cord --- as they unwrapped this mat they found a few human bones, all that
remained of some earlier Nevadan. They had found some proof of earlier
occupation of the area. The second mat they located was to reveal an almost
perfect wrapping that contained an individual who was partially mummified (some
hair and scalp remained,) with its leather moccasins, rabbit-skin blankets, and the
burial mat in excellent condition. Unfortunately their find being dated by M. R.

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Harrington, curator of the Southwest Museum placed the age of their find between
1,500 to 2,000 years old.

The discovery being made in 1940, they had no choice but to accept the date
supplied by the expert – as radiocarbon dating was still more than a decade away.
Their find was placed in a wooden box,
cataloged and stored in the security of
the Nevada State Museum in Carson City.
The time had come for testing when R.
Ervin Taylor of the USC Riverside
Laboratory was in search of any
mummies that had hair he could test – he
obtained hairs from burial #2, taking a
small sample of the bone to date in
comparison with the date of the hair, he found dates that put the mummy in the
Holocene era --- more than 9,000 years ago – a mistake? They then tested the mats
and received the same results. These tests had confirmed the original feelings the
Wheeler’s had had when they discovered the remains --- they were old!

It is a shame that these two ancient Americans along with the Wizards Beach
Man are surrounded in controversy with their “supposed” descendants, in the name
of scared souls being denied their rightful place in the ground with observation and
testing by the scientific world and the public, denied. I don’t buy their reasoning and
suppose as long as I live I never will, no matter their arguments and their liberal use
of the Native American Graves protection act in their quest for headlines.

Physical anthropologists see a great similarity in these specimens linking them

to certain Old World populations, European and even the Ainu of Japan --- I hesitate
to relate that some link them to early Polynesia, but we will explore that a little later
on.

Ongoing studies of the Native languages in the America’s have shown them to
be extremely diverse, in fact representing over four-hundred and fifty (“450”)
distinct families, with some having a single isolated language. Research is
expected to reduce this number, but the degree of diversity is believed to have

Who is America – Kanook – Page 5

required tens of millennia1 to develop. This fact has tickled the brains of many of
people over the years, in that how can a race of similar people have so many
languages over such a short period of time, after all the French and the BIA were
not present to prohibit the use of a person Native language. Yet, mainstream
scholars are insisting that all the languages descend from “only” three or less
separate linguistic lines, in a time period of less than a dozen millennia --- extremely
unlikely, and bordering on the insane. Unlocking the linguistic history of the New
World poses a highly complex set of problems that will be under investigation for
years, and yet as mentioned there are some that have slammed the door and stick
by their position that Native America began their language diversification just for
the heck of it a couple of thousand years ago, that is, individuals with a European
influence.

In one particular language group, the Na Dene, researches have uncovered

evidence that this group which includes Native groups in Alaska, the Nootka of
British Columbia, the Navajo, also includes the Berbers (Morocco), and the Tuaregs
of North Africa. It is also known that the Celts and the Basques language are also
derived from its base. Recent investigation also reveals there is a close relationship
between the Inuit language and that of the Basque of Spain. In the case of the Na
Dene it is now thought that they migrated from Asia independently and
considerable more recently (6,000 to 10,000 years ago) than the traditional
American Indians (“Amerinds”).

Native Americans have been divided into “three” linguistic groups as mentioned
above, the well-defined Eskaleut and Na Dene of northern North America and the
heterogeneous (will mixed) Amerind of North, Central and South America.

The mixture of diversity of the Amerinds is believed to be a result of multiple

independent migrations or a single “ancient” migration with extensive time to
radiate from its original form. An investigation was done recently in order to better
understand the origin and interrelationship of the three groups. Where a number of
individuals had their mitochondrial DNA (“mtDNA”) tested;

1. 87 Amerinds (Pima, Maya, and Ticuna of North, Central and South America)

2. 80 Na Dene (Dogrib – Canada/NW Territories, Tlingit and Navajo)

1
Millennia = 1,000 years

Who is America – Kanook – Page 6

 3. 153 Asians (7 diverse populations)

American Indian (“mtDNAs”) were found to be directly descended from five (“5”)
founding Asian mtDNAs whereas they clustered into four (“4”) lineages, each
characterized by a different rare Asian mtDNA marker.

Lineage “A” is defined by a (“HaeIII”) site gain at (np-663)

Lineage “B” where the lineage is defined by a 9-bp deletion between “COII” and
“tRNA-Lys” genes

Lineage “C” defined by a “HincII” site loss at np-13259,

Lineage “D” defined by an “AluI” site loss at np-5176

The North, Central and South American “Amerinds” were found to have all four
lineages (A,B.C,D), which demonstrates that they all originated from a common
ancestral genetic source. Now if you understand all the above, you’re a much
better informed individual than I, I just copied it from an on-line report.

The Na Dene mtDNAs were “predominately” from lineage A, with 27% of them
having a Na Dene specific “Rsal” site loss at np-16329, where the accumulated Na
Dene variation was only 0.021%. (They only deviated by less than .21% across the
board).

These results demonstrate that the Amerinds mtDNAs arose from “one” or
maybe “two” Asian migrations that were really distinct from the migration of the Na
Dene, in that the Amerind populations are about four (“4”) times older than the Na
Dene.

But – examination of ancient and contemporary Native American mtDNA

suggests a “single” wave of migration into the New World, whereas some scholars
suggest there were two waves of migration, the Na Dene and Amerind. The finding
that all “four” lineages are present in North, Central, and South America suggesting
that all four lineages arrived together. Examination of ancient Native American DNA
shows that all four were present before European contact and that at least two were
present in South America.

Who is America – Kanook – Page 7

 The question still remains – when?

And then there was the find in Southeast Alaska on Prince of Wales Island, a set
of ancient bones that have produced some of the greatest evidence up-to-date that
people who originated in Asia could have sailed or paddled to North America, then
migrated south down the coast.

A human jawbone and other fragments were found in “On your Knees Cave” in
1996. The cave, located on the northern tip of the island near Summer Strait was
discovered during a logging unit survey in 1993 and then mapped by the members
of the Tongass Cave Project. It is about 1 km (3,280’) from the shoreline and about
125 meters (410’) above sea level, and it is located along a ledge on the south-
facing side of a deep valley.

In 1994 it was visited by Dr. Tim Heaton and Kevin Allred to investigate several
bones exposed in the sediment found in the cave. They revealed samples of brown
bear, black bear, otter, and fish --- although these bones were few they were
sufficient to date. The first bones dated were from a brown bear and found to be
35,365 radiocarbon years old, while the second bone from a black bear was found
to be 41,600 years old.

In 1996 Dr. Heaton and Fred Grady practicing excavation methods, found on July
4th found the lower jaws, pelvis, and a bone tool of a human. Dates of 9,730 and
9,880 years BP were obtained on the human remains, making them the oldest
found in Alaska or Canada --- the associated bone tool was dated to 10,300 years
old.

Over a period of five-years 5,985 gallon-size bags full of sediment were

excavated and washed, resulting in over 32,000 fossils that have been individually
cataloged and identified. Species recovered include brown and black bear, caribou,
Stella sea lion, ringed and harbor seal, artic and red fox, hoary marmot, brown
lemming, heather vole, and a variety of sea birds such as auks, puffins, and diving
ducks.

Unlike the Native groups in the lower-48, the Natives of Alaska welcomed and
signed off on the excavation and the testing of items that were found, including the
human remains.

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 The DNA results were nothing if but exciting, extracted from a single tooth they
showed matches (to other data bases) that included people from California to
Mexico, Ecuador and Chile. He even matched the DNA to DNA recorded as being
from Illinois showing at least some of the human’s ancestors traveled overland. It is
still unclear where exactly the caveman’s ancestors originated, but the DNA
sequence is generally found in Asia, with only an exact match with a member of the
“Han” ethnic group in eastern China. Only access to detailed analysis of genetic
material from across Asia will allow researchers to pin down the Alaskan caveman’s
roots.

In our recent history (1968) a series of test were conducted on Chinese boys (30
each) and girls (30 each) age 12-years-old, whereas a series of cranial films were
taken, the same was done on 36 males and 34 females of 18 years of age, on the
island of Taiwan. The results revealed the following:

1. Chinese in Taiwan were similar to Japanese, and Central and South American
Indians. They all possessed a shorter frontal cranial base and depth of face,
and were completely different from North American Caucasians.

2. Chinese in Taiwan were similar to Japanese, but were “different” from Central
and South American Indians, in having a flatter infraorbital outline, longer
facial height, flatten mandibular plane angle and a more frontal position of
chine.

3. Chinese in Taiwan were characteristically different from Japanese by having

a small interincisal angle, lower frontal facial height, mandibular angle and
mandibular plane angel.

In summary, the results indicated that the Chinese in Taiwan are characterized
by having a wide but short pattern, a retro-position of mandible ramus, and more
upright mandible angle and a prominent labial inclination of anterior tooth axis. In
short, they don’t represent any North American race. So it appears the Na Dene
Indian doesn’t have any close relatives in Taiwan from the recent past, in fact other
studies have indicated that the Na Dene linguistic group migrated from Siberia in a
2nd migration as shown in a mtDNA study performed recently, which showed we

Who is America – Kanook – Page 9

might have come from the far eastern steppes of Siberia. Confusing at best, isn’t
it?

Well we know (from published research) that the human remains found on Prince
of Wales Island had relatives in Illinois, California, Mexico and Chile but are we sure
of their place in Alaska?

At present (with so many tests and research being conducted) it seems that
mtDNA is not going to solve all or any of the migration patterns that have surfaced
with the research, only in some cases producing additional questions. It appears
that just the surface has been scratched in how far we have come in our search for
our past and our migration across the globe. The questions today far outnumber
the questions we thought we would answer with our research, but isn’t that the way
with all science?

Granted we have come along way since Donald Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves
Coppens and Tim White made their infamous discovery in Ethiopia 32 years ago
when they found Lucy. In theory (mostly) the America’s were first occupied
beginning 12,000 years ago – although late data suggest strongly that this is wrong,
not in its entirety grant you, but in part it only covers one or two migrations.

How do mainstream scholars discount the discoveries in South America that pre-
date the Clovis find by at least 20,000 years? They hang tight on their convictions
that man only made his way across the land bridge a couple of days ago. Today
these scholars numbers are slowly decreasing as more and more evidence is
coming to light that is demonstrating that man may have occupied the America’s
(based on research in 2001) as far back as 55,000 years ago --- this based on digs
at the “Gainey” site in Michigan that man was residing in the New World “before”
the Last Glacier Maximum. The 39,000-year old date proposed for this site falls well
within the prevailing opinion with many archaeologists with the dates established
for the sites in South America and the dates for the sites located at Lewisville, Texas
(26,619 +/- 300 years) and the site at Meadowcroft Rockshelter which is now in the
process of having its date changed to 45,000-years BP. Little different than the
11,200 year date set in concrete for the Clovis culture.
I refer to the Ice Age(s) as a dictating moment in the
journey of man to the America’s, as if he only arrived after

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the ice had left ---- after all this has been the prevailing opinion. In my surfing the
net I found that the last Ice Ages were not the first time earth has been subjected to
massive amounts of Ice. I was really taken back to find out that earth at one time
was completely covered with ice for a period of over 10 million years, surprised? I
was, read about this at:
http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc98/8_29_98/bob1.htm

Speaking about Ice, the last Ice Age peaked about 18,000 years ago where we
find the Tlingit [my nation] homeland under ice many feet thick and the seas lower
by about 100 meters, with a time of over 6,000 years to reach its present status,
allowing life as we know it to exist. This ice dictated the populating of the coast of
Southeast Alaska and the rest of the Pacific Northwest, but this is not to say there
were already people living on the North American continent. Some having made
the crossing from Asia as long ago as 55,000 years (as recent research suggests),
which fits in with some of the Hopi myths and legends whereas their tribe split and
different clans populated the known earth. I have heard, or read that one particular
clan (the Bear) headed north to follow the melting ice to establish a new homeland.
Are not these the people who migrated through the ice to populate portions of the
coastline of North America ---- this proposition in not so far off base, nor is the one
that speaks to Tlingit and Haida ancestors arriving from across the sea.

The investigation of world wide genetics has come a long way in the last 40
years, since the discovery of DNA in 1959 by Watson and Crick, where the study of
the sequencing of genes helps determine our origin and shows how each and every
one of us is unique. Ongoing research has revealed some surprising insights into
the migration of man around the planet, leading to the theory that Ocean Currents
just might have played a role in this distribution. One example is the finding of
10,000 year old African genes amongst the people of the Lower Amazon, suggesting
that Africans used the southern Equatorial current to cross the Atlantic, or how
about the 6,000 year old Taiwanese genes found at the opposite end of the
Kuroshio (Japanese) Current in Canada and along the west coast of America?

I remember years ago when the National Geographic had an issue that dealt
with the quest of Thor Heyerdahl to find how and why the people of Polynesia came
to be. At the time I only really admired the pictures and did not pay too much
attention to the article – a typical reaction from a man when he thinks he is going to

Who is America – Kanook – Page 11

live forever. He won an Academy Award in 1951 for the documentation filmed on
his famous trip from Peru to the South Pacific. It is available on DVD – “Kon Tiki”.

I now read that on April 28th, 2006 his grandson, “Olav Heyerdahl” is following in
his footsteps to reaffirm his grandfather’s theories and the results of his many years
of study related to the ocean currents of the world.

Contrary to the belief that all significant migrations of man only occurred on
land, Thor believed that man utilized favorable ocean currents and prevailing winds
many times in the past, either for trade or when unfavorable events such as war
and natural catastrophes forced people to leave their homeland. His research has
shown that slow moving sailing rafts would foster marine growth, in a sense
creating their own ecosystem where fish would shelter in the shadows of the craft,
birds would stop to rest in the rigging and would often find tasty morsels hiding
amongst the weed growth along the waterline. He maintained that this wide range
of wildlife provided the traveler with a veritable larder of food during a relaxing sail
with the wind and current. His (at the time) weird and outlandish theory’s never
really did sit well in mainstream academia, but now that genetics is becoming a
useful and accurate tool, his idea of the ocean currents (rivers of the ocean) as
having a role in the distribution of man are proving they are actually correct.

He first became interested in Pacific pre-history while he was on an entomology

expedition which he had combined with his honeymoon on Fatu Hiva (a small island
in the Marques group in French Polynesia) with his first wife Liv in 1937. Many
things captured his active imagination, for instance drawings of “cats” (which are
not natural to this part of the world) and the large Marquesan stone statues
scattered about the islands. He had many conversations with a local elder who
related to him that his race had come from, “Te Fiti” [the east] nodding toward that
part of the horizon where the sun rose, no other land is between this island and
South America. The elder (Tei-Tetua) went on to explain that their ancestors led by
“Con Tiki” arrived via boat from a very hot dry land in the east. Later Thor was able
to find in Peru the confirmation of the legend of Con Tike Viracocha, a Peruvian
mariner who voyaged into the Pacific.

This legend ran against all thinking in its day, whereas common scientific belief
was that the islands of the South Pacific were populated by the Polynesians, island

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hopping from Southeast Asia. Thor, at the age of 23, began a livelong quest for the
truth about the Polynesians, which included a book he published in 1952 “American
Indians in the Pacific”, where he came to the conclusion that Polynesians not only
entered the Pacific from Peru, but also sailed via favorable currents and winds from
Canada to Hawaii.

Bu now you’re probably nodding off (if you are reading this looking at the
screen) wondering what all this has to do with the populating of the America’s? I
am attempting to demonstrate the use of the oceans as a way of migration and to
drag common everyday thinking away from walking (remember the European found
that Native Americans had no wheel) miles and miles, develop over 450 different
languages, and diverse cultural methodology in just 12,000 years. Whether or not I
succeed will depend on your ability to stay awake and my ability to maintain
enough of your interest to absorb the material. So in lieu of technical mumble-
jumbo how about a little humor, “The irony of life is that, by the time you're old
enough to know your way
around, you're not going anywhere.” Just a little!

For those of you who have very little knowledge of the ocean currents (and why
should you, you like most of us are stuck in mainstream America worried about the
next increase in the price of gasoline) the figure below shows the current flow
between South America and the islands in the South Pacific.

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 Thor Heyerdahl’s interest was peaked upon hearing those stories from the Fata
Hiva elder along with the preserved mummies, painting and legends, and most of
all that some of the local inhabitants appeared as red-haired North American
Caucasians.

Legends in Peru speak to the old Inca legend of a sun-god name “Con-Tiki
Viracocha” who was the supreme leader of a race of “mythical” fair-skinned people.
Kon-Tiki was high priest and sun-king of these legendary “white men” who left
enormous ruins on the shores of Lake Titicaca (Peru high-altitude lake). Local
tradition talks about a war that broke out between his people and the people of
Chief Cari, from the Coquimbo Valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coquimbo) with the
last great battle taking place on an island in the middle of the lake, whereas the fair
race was massacred, all that is except Kon-Tiki and his closet companions who fled
to the coast and sailing off into the sunset.

When the Spaniards (ever pleasant and god fearing) came to Peru the Incas told
them that the colossal monuments were erected by a race of white gods who had
lived there before the Inca became rulers of the land. They described these “white
gods” as wise, peaceful instructors who had originally come from the north in the
“morning of time”, teaching them manner and customs – something the Spaniards
were never to show the people of Peru.

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 It is known that when the first Europeans discovered the Pacific islands they
were surprised to fine entire families that had pale skin, hair varying in color from
reddish to blonde, and almost Semitic with their hook-nose faces. In contrast, most
of the Polynesians had golden-brown skin, raven-black hair and rather flat noses.
When Jakob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island he supposedly asked of the many
natives that were light-skinned? It is said that these people can count their
ancestors right back to the time of Tiki and Hotu Matua, when they first came
sailing across the sea from a mountainous land in the east that was scorched by the
sun!

Although Heyerdahl’s expeditions were spectacular with heroic journeys in flimsy

boats catching the public’s imagination, his diffusionist theories were considered
eccentric and old-fashioned by some archaeologists. He has been accused of
having an “imperialist” mentality even though he demonstrated that long distance
ocean voyages were possible even with ancient designs --- his handle became one
who practiced “experimental archaeology”. He wrote at the end of his book about
Fata Hiva:

There is nothing for modern man to return to. Our wonderful time in the
wilderness had given us a taste of what man had abandoned and what mankind
was still trying to get even further away from. Progress today can be defined as
man's ability to complicate simplicity. Nothing in all the procedure that modern
man, helped by all his modern middlemen, goes through before he earns money to
buy a fish or a potato will ever be as simple as pulling it out of the water or soil.
Without the farmer and the fisherman, modern society would collapse, with all its
shops and pipes and wires. The farmers and the fishermen represent the nobility of
modern society; they share their crumbs with the rest of us, who run about with
papers and screwdrivers attempting to build a better world without a blueprint.

Now the plot thickens. In search of Polynesian origins, scholars have studied the
female (mtDNA 9 bp deletion and associated Polynesian sequence motifs) and have
established a Taiwanese origin for the female Polynesian DNA. Leading them to
conclude that the “reduced” genetic diversity in Polynesians confirmed that they
left Asia a scant 6,000 years ago. Now that presents a bit of a problem --- where
were they for a period of 3,800 years, if not in Polynesia, they have been proven to
officially enter the Pacific island groups around 2,200 years ago. As proven,
previously genetic evidence made it impossible for the Polynesians to have lived
among Taiwanese, Melanesians, Indonesians or Micronesians during this period.

Who is America – Kanook – Page 15

 Susan Serjeantson2, a geneticist, seems to have found the answer. In her
studies she found a strong link between the New Zealand Maori and the
Southeastern Alaska Tlingit (imagine that!). She observed the “rare” antigen HLA
Bw48 in the Tlingit, Haida, and the Kwakuitl or people who inhabited Prince of Wales
Island, Queen Charlotte Island and Vancouver Island.

HLA Bw48 was also known to be a “key marker”, unique to the Polynesians
and that in the Polynesians Bw48 was always associated with “A11”, a Caucasian
gene (this was found to be absent in western American regions) this indicated that
this change came after they left the Pacific Northwest (not in the reverse).

All this scientific mumbo-jumbo aside, legends, common cultural traits and
numerous artifact similarities confirm a connection between the Tlingit, Haida and
the Hawaiians.

There is a Tlingit legend that refers to the long ocean voyage from Taiwan,
creating the possibility that the 7km [4.35 miles] per hour “Kuroshio Current”
(Japanese Current) played a major part in the migration. The story goes:

There were some strange people who arrived from the Western Ocean and
among them were two sisters. They landed on Dall Island (SE Alaska), where they
met and married men whose people were coming down the rivers from the interior
of North America. One sister went with her family to Haida-gwan or the Queen
Charlotte Islands, where her children grew and multiplied into the Haida Nation.
The other sister went with her family to Prince of Wales Island and became the
ancestress (mother) of the Tlingit Nation3.

It seems that the ancestors of the Hawaiian race did not come from the islands
of the South Pacific, but rather from a northern direction (welau lani) in particular
from the land of “Kalonakikeke” (Alaska). According to legendary stories a great
flood occurred during the reign of “Kahiko-Luamea” on the continent of “Ka-Houpo-
o-Kane” (Taiwan) and carried away a floating log of wood named “Konikonihia”, a
log that carried a precious human cargo, which in time came to rest in the land of
“Kalonakikeke”.

2
http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/biogs/P002744b.htm
3
http://www.sheldonmuseum.org/tlingithistory.htm

Who is America – Kanook – Page 16

 North Pacific Currents

On this log were the first man and woman who came to “Kalonakikeke” from the
continent of “Ka-Houpo-o-Kane”. Mr Alaska (Kalonakiko-ke) and his wife, Woman of
my dreams, (Hoomoe-a-pule). They were said to both be high chiefs (persons of
high caste) of the countries of “Kanaka-Hikina” (person of the east) and “Kanaka-
Komohana (person of the west) and both were descended from the great-great
ancestor “Huka-ohialaka”.
Many generations later, Chief Nuu, his wife, his three sons and their wives
traveled in a canoe called “Ka-Waa-Halau-Alii-O-Ka-Moku” (the royal canoe of the
continent), where it finally rested upon “Mauna Kea” (the white mountain), on the
island of Hawaii. They were the first Hawaiians.
In the “Kumuhonua Genealogy4” of Kauai and Oahu, Chief Nuu is mentioned,
including his wife Lilinoe. Nuu would have been born between 225 and 75 BC, a
Solomon Peleioholani was a descendant of Chief Nuu through the Kings of Kauai,
and the arrival of Chief Nuu between 2225 and 2075 years ago agrees fairly well
with the genetic information that the Polynesians underwent a rapid population
expansion, from a small founder population about 2,200 years ago --- this when the
Eastern Polynesians entered the Pacific.
Adding a little reality to the above, the following cultural and artifact similarities
were noted by “Thor Heyerdahl” in his book, “American Indians in the Pacific”,
which was published in 1952, between the Natives of the Northwest and the
Polynesians.

4
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pac/hm/hm23.htm

Who is America – Kanook – Page 17

 1. Formal principles of rank, lineage, and kinship
2. Use of mats or rugs (blankets) for money
3. Fish hook and harpoon design
4. Canoe design and building techniques, such as hot rocks for steaming hulls
5. Earth oven procedures
6. House design with entrance totems
7. Inlaying of shells into carvings
8. Weaving styles
9. Use of gourds for containers
10.Phallic design of stone pounders along with their spiritual significance
11.Stone bowl manufacture and design
12.Gaping angry mouth motif on the handles of clubs
13.Tattooing tools and techniques
14.Design of the Tiki and its spiritual significance
15. Traditional name for the Haida homeland of Queen Charlotte Island is
“Hada’gwai’I” very similar (linguistically) to Hawaii’s5

An ancient Hawaiian chant describes the hardship, hunger and cold they
encountered on their voyage across the North Pacific, verifying that their migration
into the Pacific was not directly to Hawaii.
Naturally most all of the anthropologists (at the time-1952) were not in favor of
accepting the idea of any Pacific Northwest islands being linked to anyone from the
South Pacific, much less from Hawaii. Mainly because the “Austronesian” language
was not spoken in the region, whereas most groups speak the Na Dene language.
Further proof of their affiliation can be attached to their common art, where the
protruding tongue and eyes shape found in Tlingit/Haida and Polynesian carvings
can be traced directly back to Asia. This unique blend of art styles cannot be found
no-where else in the world, and it is not something that can be attributed to
“parallel evolution”, especially in isolation on some far off middle Pacific Island.
At the end of the day, the similarities between the Tlingit, Kwakuitl, Haida, and
Polynesians are too many to ignore, and simply stuff in a drawer in the back of your
mind, labeled “coincidence”. Although the evidence is compelling, many scientists
cannot bring themselves to accept that Polynesians separated from Melanesians in
Southeast Asia 11,500 or so years ago, moved north to Taiwan, leaving there 6,000
5
If you look at this site, you will find pictures of the above (http://users.on.net/~mkfenn/page3.htm)

Who is America – Kanook – Page 18

years ago to ride the Kuroshio current across the North Pacific to the Pacific
Northwest where they spent 3,800 years islands of the West Coast of Alaska and
Canada, and them left for Hawaii 2,200 years ago --- just doesn’t sit well, if you
know what I mean.
I am not an anthropologist nor am I a noted historian, only a bored Tlingit/Swede
who on a raining night in Istanbul, Turkey during the cold month of December
happened to stumble across a site on the Internet containing a bit about the
populating of America --- and I was off to nights of surfing the net to learn a bit
more of my history.
It is still not certain where my Native roots really originated (other than Lucy in
the Ethiopian desert), I still know very little -- although I have read and studied their
supposed beginning, from the Hopi Bear, to the migration through the ice corridors
and now from the sea, only more questions have accumulated.

Who is America – Kanook – Page 19