00:00.30 kinkella Hello and welcome to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 131 I am your host Dr Andrew Kenkella and tonight con teaki can you sail a balsa wood boat across the Pacific Ocean in the wrong direction. We shall see all right? So today's little story slash adventure. The con tiki is done by student request now I know what you're thinking. Like can kill a man. Why do you interact with your students. What's wrong with you. You know they're they're dirty. Don't don't do that. Don't dirty yourself with your own students just have your own ideas man and I'm like no no no I will steal their ideas. And then put my name on them see genius move I think so so their name will not be said here. So aren't we all happy and excited that I the great Andrew King Keller came up with this idea I know I know you're welcome world. So you know when when my student I were talking about this It's funny. They had asked me about their hate like hey can kill what about the khanti I'm like oh my god what a great idea and what I will say is I do have this long list. 01:35.61 kinkella That I keep for ideas for this show. You know, just this big It's like this big like sheet aligned paper that just has like this big old list of ideas on it and hopefully nobody will ever find it and see it because it's all scribbly and weird and you'll be like. Was this written by a crazy person. But yeah and I honestly I can't remember if I had it on there or not but it is an idea that I've had sort of in the back of my mind and I'll tell you why it Um, and and again in seriousness I'm so thankful for my student for sort of. Jogging all the cobwebs in my brain and like hey man the kontika what a great story. This is why I wanted to do this story. It's because I have a little hook where I can tell my own little mini story that goes with it and actually. I think you are here dear listener for the earliest kin color story so far I thought I couldn't beat some of my earlier stories I said some stuff in earlier podcasts that happened when I was like 12 this one I think is from when I was like. 7 I was really young and I think that puts it in the 1970 s just barely let me take you back to 1979 when a young first grader reads some sort of first grader easy read book. 03:09.99 kinkella Complete with headphones that you put on and a tape that you put in the tape player about Thor Hire Doll and his voyage on the con tiki now I thought this was just the coolest thing when I was like in the first grade right. And I just remember little flashes of this story because usually you'd get some crappy story just about you know, somebody who has a dog or something but this one was like a voyage with a boat across the pacific. And I just thought it was so fascinating in my little like first grade mind and I I do remember this that I was super freaked out by the last name hire doll I was like oh my god I have no idea idea how to say that I have no idea what that is and it I was I remember having anxiety. About like I um, I'm not going to be able to say this word, we're gonna have like a test on it or something that I won't know but man I thought it was super cool. So you know what? what hooked it for me now if you guys those of you who are old enough to remember and I'm sure there's like. 2 of you out there still living though you know the rest of us are long dead. Not only was this sort of 1 of those easy read books or you know one that may have even included a cassette tape that you put in that sort of reads along with you I think there may have also been. 04:43.49 kinkella Some sort of book on the scholastic books page for any of us in California and like the I think probably the 70 s and the 80 s every so often you would get this like sheet that was like maybe 4 pages long printed on kind of newspapery cheap paper. And it was like the scholastic books. It would come like maybe once every two or three months and you could have you could try and get your parents to buy you a book or 2 they were very inexpensive and and you could go through the whole motions of like Xing the box the book you want and trying to add all the money together and stuff you know. And buy a book for yourself and I believe there might have been some obviously super bridged version of Kon Tiki on there as well. I do remember that usually I just bought like star wars books all the time right? That was my main go to I bought every. Like star wars movie but abridged for a second grader to read book like I bought all I I was and still am a star wars fanatic but in that world. It's a testament to Khan Tiki that it would get me to not get a star wars thing. Right? that month in my you know 7 year old brain and and get this other thing as well. So I it just really lit that fire in me of exploration I do think it was the first thing that really did now. Yes, Luke Skywalker staring at the twin sons of tattooine. 06:18.43 kinkella Did do it for me some too of course but this was real right? I'm like this is something that people could actually do they could like build a boat and go across the wilds of the pacific right? so. What is this story right? What is Kon Tiki so this this takes place honestly in 1947 and it's the brainchild of this guy Thor hired all now my last several podcasts I talked about how. People with terrible names like ignatius loyal adonelly. They're forced to become pseudo archeologists you know because their name they can't do anything else. What about their name. This I have to say this bucks my trend a little because the name Thor Hire Doll I mean dude, that's a awesome name. What can you do I that might be the best name there ever was might be number 1 so this guy he just to give you his dates. He was born in 1914 and he dies in I think 2002 lives a long life. A lot of these explorer guys tend to if they don't. Get killed. You know it's at at some point they're they're vaguely healthy individuals. You know, um, but Thor growing up was really excited in the whole sort of adventuring around the world. The finding treasure right? that sort of adventuresome. 07:51.31 kinkella Be and so in his thirty s and this is right after world war 2 right? This is this is a different world for everyone. This is world war 2 ends in 1945 and I think its timing was part of its um, success. Now I don't mean success so much in what it actually did. We'll get to that in a minute I mean in terms of its publicity. The the khan tiki voyage was huge in terms of publicity and that's why me you know if this happens in 1947 if it is so it's like thirty years later why I'm so still going to read a little scholastic book on it right? So what Thor hirodal does is he thinks that polynesia the islands of the pacific were populated by people coming from Peru right? So this is from South America and going west. Across the pacific so he's going to quote unquote prove this by building a quote unquote native wrapped um and then sailing it across right. It's a fairly crazy idea we got. We got to say that you know but he does it and what he does is he it's made out of balsa. Basically it's like a big old raft now I will um. 09:22.81 kinkella Link down below to I think a'll link to the Wikipedia page because I think later I'll read some quotes off it because they have some pretty funny quotes on there but it's really good about um some of its photos and stuff and you can google k tiki'll come up in a minute the name Khan Tiki is for the boat and Thra Hire Doll had some. Backstory to the name like it had to do with the anchor or something. It makes no sense and what we're going to see is unfortunately um, ah Thor hired all while being very into the exploration side of things he doesn't really do his homework. Right? He just gets these crazy ideas and then seeks to prove them. But then all he really does is prove a crazy idea. He doesn't prove anything about history or what actually happened so builds this boat and then goes on this voyage with several other people. He's not alone. The boat is really weird because he says he makes it off of um notes from the spanish conquistadorss or something. But honestly, it's just this weird pastiche of sort of native esque. You know it is it nativist it. It reminds me of the idea that I talked about in previous podcast mayanism. Yeah, the idea where the ancient maya it sort of gets this. Um. 10:46.59 kinkella This new age thing with it right? It's very new aging has nothing to do with facts so he pulls this boat out of balsa kind of straps it together and a again, it's this combo. It's just it's odd. It's like a raft it almost. Almost looks like some huckleberry fin raft but like much bigger but then he has masts on it and stuff again a pastic of modern technology and pseudo old technologies. It's just a weird thing but they set off on their journey takes them one hundred and one days ah believe it's like four thousand three hundred miles or something like this and they finally do get to an island in the pacific so he does show you that you can take a funky weird pastiche boat and make it to an island from South America ah across. Ah, the the pacific into a real island in Polynesia now this becomes just a huge smash pop culture event so much so that they put out a documentary in 1950 on the voyage of the Khan Tiki and it wins um the academy award I believe for best documentary in 1951 so it's just huge Thor hired all also becomes a member of the explorers club and he's not the only member of the Explorer's Club okay um 12:19.20 kinkella I'm a member of the explorers club and when we come back? What does that mean.