The bamboo raft as a key to the introduction of the sweet potato in prehistoric Polynesia

The idea that American Indians played no part in Polynesian prehistory orig inated with J.R.Forster, a companion of Cook on his second voyage. Forster made a comparative study of five Polynesian languages, using a basic list o f 40 words that included 'sweet potato'. He concluded that although there w ere many similarities between those languages and the languages of Southeas t Asia, 'no distant or accidental similarity' existed between the Polynesia n and American languages. Moreover, the 'wretchedness and small size' of Am erican sailing craft proved 'incontestably' that the Pacific Islanders had not originated in the Americas. The premises for Forster's claims have long been proved to be wrong. Yet many scholars still accept his main conclusio n. This article controverts that view. It argues that voyagers from Mindana o crossed the Pacific to Ecuador in about 200 BC on a bamboo raft and that this became the prototype of the balsa rafts of Ecuador and Peru of early S panish times. Such rafts made prehistoric voyages to Mexico, south-central Chile, and the Galapagos Islands. Easter Island's first settlers, it is arg ued, were drifted there in a balsa raft. A new claim that Polynesians from Easter Island sailed to South America and returned with the sweet potato an d bottle gourd is also discussed.