Caroline Islands. The District Economic Development Office on Ponape sells tourists a brochure containing data about the history and legends for a dollar. If I have concentrated here on the dragon legend, I have a good reason for doing so. It is not because I have found a
unique
key witness for my theory of the gods.
On all the South Sea islands which can show the ruins of ancient buildings and confirm their past in myths, one finds the wild claim that big stones flew through the air to their appointed places. The most prominent of these legends-cum-prophecies (because it is world-famous) concerns Easter Island. In their myths the Rapanui have handed down through the ages the “knowledge” that some 200 colossal statues around the coast of the island landed in their positions “from the air” and “by themselves.”
The dragon and dove legends are found everywhere, naturally in different versions. The mass of additional legendary material is dominated by warlike events, lists of the descendants of ruling royal families, marriages and murders, as well as verifiable historical facts of more recent date. This extensive part of the legends is based on facts; it has a core of reality. That seems only logical to me, for even the boldest imagination needs a spur, a launching pad, as it were, for daring ideas. Thus, when it is dealing with an apparent Utopia, the human imagination tends to use what it has experienced or at least what is conceivable at that time. Now dragons are a global element in myths and legends. The earliest Chinese sagas mention them and they have their natural place in Mayan mythology. These fire-breathing monsters are familiar to every ancient people in the South Sea community, though sometimes in the form of noisy, flying snakes. But they all possess the fabulous art of being able to carry very large and heavy objects over vast distances and setting them up in a prearranged order in a given place. What master builder of our own day would not like to be a dragon with such abilities?
The imaginative early inhabitants built Nan Madol. Not in a day. With the help of a friendly mathematician, I calculated that it would have taken them about 300 years. They toiled with blood, sweat and tears for many generations. Why has not this tremendous achievement by the islanders been recorded and given prominence in established history if—as the archaeologists claim—it only took place 500 years ago? The “proof” of this recent dating is very flimsy. Six years ago some charcoal remains were found under a basalt block near the “well.” Carbon 14 examinations gave a date around A.D. 1300.
Apart from the well-attested inaccuracy of the C 14 method, which presupposes a constant relation of the radioactive isotope of carbon (C) with the atomic weight 14 in the atmosphere, it is much more possible or even probable that later generations lit a fire on the basalt buildings that had already been in existence for a long time. These are not proofs to be taken seriously, they are tricks to bluff us when scholars have nothing else to rely on.
Polynesia (Greek: country of many islands), the archipelago of the eastern ocean, lies in the large triangle between Hawaii, Easter Island and New Zealand. The original inhabitants of all the Polynesian islands (total area 15,800 square miles) have common sagas and legends; they have common linguistic roots and with only a few variations they have a common appearance. They also have common gods!
The majority of Polynesian specialists—archaeologists, anthropologists and philologists—are united in saying that culture and language spread from East Polynesia. According to this version, the export of culture spread from the group of the nine Cook Islands and their many atolls, from the large island of Tahiti (387 square miles), from the Tuamoto Islands, with approximately 80 atolls, and from the Marquesas and the Mangareva Islands.
I dare not belittle these scientific conclusions,
unique
key witness for my theory of the gods.
On all the South Sea islands which can show the ruins of ancient buildings and confirm their past in myths, one finds the wild claim that big stones flew through the air to their appointed places. The most prominent of these legends-cum-prophecies (because it is world-famous) concerns Easter Island. In their myths the Rapanui have handed down through the ages the “knowledge” that some 200 colossal statues around the coast of the island landed in their positions “from the air” and “by themselves.”
The dragon and dove legends are found everywhere, naturally in different versions. The mass of additional legendary material is dominated by warlike events, lists of the descendants of ruling royal families, marriages and murders, as well as verifiable historical facts of more recent date. This extensive part of the legends is based on facts; it has a core of reality. That seems only logical to me, for even the boldest imagination needs a spur, a launching pad, as it were, for daring ideas. Thus, when it is dealing with an apparent Utopia, the human imagination tends to use what it has experienced or at least what is conceivable at that time. Now dragons are a global element in myths and legends. The earliest Chinese sagas mention them and they have their natural place in Mayan mythology. These fire-breathing monsters are familiar to every ancient people in the South Sea community, though sometimes in the form of noisy, flying snakes. But they all possess the fabulous art of being able to carry very large and heavy objects over vast distances and setting them up in a prearranged order in a given place. What master builder of our own day would not like to be a dragon with such abilities?
The imaginative early inhabitants built Nan Madol. Not in a day. With the help of a friendly mathematician, I calculated that it would have taken them about 300 years. They toiled with blood, sweat and tears for many generations. Why has not this tremendous achievement by the islanders been recorded and given prominence in established history if—as the archaeologists claim—it only took place 500 years ago? The “proof” of this recent dating is very flimsy. Six years ago some charcoal remains were found under a basalt block near the “well.” Carbon 14 examinations gave a date around A.D. 1300.
Apart from the well-attested inaccuracy of the C 14 method, which presupposes a constant relation of the radioactive isotope of carbon (C) with the atomic weight 14 in the atmosphere, it is much more possible or even probable that later generations lit a fire on the basalt buildings that had already been in existence for a long time. These are not proofs to be taken seriously, they are tricks to bluff us when scholars have nothing else to rely on.
Polynesia (Greek: country of many islands), the archipelago of the eastern ocean, lies in the large triangle between Hawaii, Easter Island and New Zealand. The original inhabitants of all the Polynesian islands (total area 15,800 square miles) have common sagas and legends; they have common linguistic roots and with only a few variations they have a common appearance. They also have common gods!
The majority of Polynesian specialists—archaeologists, anthropologists and philologists—are united in saying that culture and language spread from East Polynesia. According to this version, the export of culture spread from the group of the nine Cook Islands and their many atolls, from the large island of Tahiti (387 square miles), from the Tuamoto Islands, with approximately 80 atolls, and from the Marquesas and the Mangareva Islands.
I dare not belittle these scientific conclusions,
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