The Baja Connection

[matapule]

There appears to be considerable anthropological evidence that the most southern indigenous tribe in Baja California, the Pericu, had in fact their ancestral roots in Polynesia. They occupied the most southern tip of Baja around the present day communities of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo as well as some of the islands in the Sea of Cortez.

This tribe was distinctly different than the tribes that inhabited central and northern Baja as well as those living in California. They were fishermen rather than hunter/gatherers. They were bigger, taller, lighter skinned, and had a language and customs completely different from the other Baja/California tribes which were related culturally and anthropologically. And the Pericu are the ones who apparently introduced the coconut to southern Baja, a plant that is not indigenous to the area.

The theory is that they probably came from Hawaii. They would have used the route followed by present day sailboats returning from Hawaii to the mainland. Favorable winds produced by the Pacific High as well as prevailing currents would have taken them to a landfall somewhere along the California coast and then work their way down to the tip of Baja.

It attests to the Polynesians great skill as sailors and navigators. Unfortuneatly, the Pericu were essentially wiped out by the Spanish conquistadors and missionaries and the resultant war, famine, and disease.

Ofa 'atu
Mui Houma

[kani-lehua]

Re: The Baja Connection

It attests to the Polynesians great skill as sailors and navigators. Unfortuneatly, the Pericu were essentially wiped out by the Spanish conquistadors and missionaries and the resultant war, famine, and disease.

Ofa 'atu
Mui Houma

the above statement applies to the kanaka maoli as well.

as far as the link between the "american" indians and the hawaiians, i have been told that the "hopi" tribe is actually the "ho'opi'i" line from hawai'i. supposedly, there are many cultural links amongst these peoples.

[Kalalau]

Re: The Baja Connection

Aloha from San Diego. Once, several years ago, we had a big storm blow in, the local forecasters call them the "Pineapple Express" because the storms blow straight from Hawai'i over us here. It went on for a week. On the day the storm broke I went walking on the beach and found a coconut. Thats no big deal in Hawai'i, obviously, but I have been walking the beaches of so. Cal for decades and have never found a coconut. As it happened a Hawaiian guy was surf fishing at the time, we talked over the coconut and concluded it probably washed in from Hawai'i. The powerful main current here runs north to south so it could not have washed in from tropical Mexico. The only other possibile source would have been the Philippines but that would have been such a long distance that it would have decomposed before getting here. I still have that coconut on the front deck.

I asked him if in the Hawaiian navigational chants and lore there had ever been any mention of anything like voyages to the Americas, he said he didn't know, but did point out that several capes and headlands in Oregon have Hawaiian sounding names, and from my years at U of Oregon I do remember some of those. So it is not impossible that Polynesian voyagers reached North and South America. I think biologists consider one of the popular food staples of Polynesians, the sweet potato or the yam, as originating in the Americas and its always been something of a mystery how it got to Polynesia.

On a sidelight, a friend of mine has a surf trailer on the Baja coast about 50 miles south of the border, it is on an old volcanic lava flow covered by lots of green cactus, from the brilliant black and brilliant green and the volcanic landscape there, if you didn't know better you could believe you were on the east side of Maui!

[localmoco]

Re: The Baja Connection

I asked him if in the Hawaiian navigational chants and lore there had ever been any mention of anything like voyages to the Americas, he said he didn't know, but did point out that several capes and headlands in Oregon have Hawaiian sounding names, and from my years at U of Oregon I do remember some of those.

Like Aloha, Oregon near Portland. But it's pronounced a-lo-ah instead of a-lo-ha. Coincidentally, Aloha High School is where current UH head coach Greg McMackin got his first head coaching job.

Then there is Friday Harbor, Washington on San Juan Island. It was named after a Hawaiian settler. But because his name was difficult to pronounce, he was nicknamed Friday after the character from Robinson Crusoe.

[Palama Kid]

Re: The Baja Connection

Way off topic: Another Hawaii connection is "Owyhee" in Idaho (and I think Oregon)

[Peshkwe]

Re: The Baja Connection

Kanakas were involved with the fur trade big time, Hudson Bay Company... they were known as 'blue men' to the Ndns. Many people were moved around to strange places during that time. 'Shinnobs and Iroquois from the east traveled all the way up through Alberta and BC Canada to trap and skin, then came back home with odd spouses and kids.

Most of the Metis evolved from the fur trade era and the mixing of European voyagers and Natives. Metis are also Hawaiian Kanakas and Ndn mixes.

You do any kind of genealogy and see 'country wife' or married in the country way...it's a polite way of saying shacking up.

[lensperson]

Re: The Baja Connection

This topic is of enormous interest.
I took notice recently of an article wherein an adze within a group of about 50 stone tools were brought back from the Tua motu Islands
One of the adzes was carved from rock identified as having come from Kahoolawe.
The rock had been carved in the Tuamotu style.
Going back and forth between Hawaii is an eight thousand mile round trip journey.
Only very skilled Navigators can do that

[Leo Lakio]

Re: The Baja Connection

Kanakas were involved with the fur trade big time, Hudson Bay Company.

That's what brought John Kalama (from Kula, Maui) to Washington State over 175 years ago. He married the daughter of a Chief from the local Nisqually Tribe, and their son, Peter, became a Chief himself. From that bloodline, there are now many, many descendents who are part-Nisqually, part-Hawaiian, and there is a town in SW Washington called Kalama.

For the past four years, we've been holding a festival there, celebrating the links between the two cultures, and we've brought Island musicians in - Dennis Kamakahi, John Keawe, Charlie Recaido, Bill Tapia, Brittni Paiva, Mihana Souza, Baba Alimoot, Chris Kamaka, Weldon Kekauoha, Bryan Tolentino, Alika Boy Kalauli IV, Brother Noland...

This year's festival is August 23/24. I'll be there again (to emcee & play some music, too).

[Peshkwe]

Re: The Baja Connection

I found out how extensive the connection to the fur trade was when I was tracing my mother in law's family line out of Alberta.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: The Baja Connection

Way off topic: Another Hawaii connection is "Owyhee" in Idaho (and I think Oregon)

Not quite so off topic here.

I lived in Idaho for a few years and became aware of the Owyhee mountain range. Up there you'll find a certain plant that apparently was so rare it only grew there. On the slopes of Mauna Kea there is a plant that is a close cousin of the famed Silversword. A caretaker of the Onizuka International Center for Astronomy told me that plant was accidently brought to the slopes of Mauna Kea by visiting explorers from the Pacific Northwest in the soles of their shoes. I told the caretaker I saw those plants on the Owyhee Mountains.

As the name itself implies, those explorers while approaching the Owyhee Mountain range pointed to them and indicated to their Indian guides that Hawaii was in that direction. Apparently the story goes the Indians repeated what they had said (in their native tongue) while pointing there as well. It came out Owyhee. The explorers thought the Indians were telling them the name of the mountain range and the name stuck. At least that's what the parks sevice ranger at Owyhee told me.

But having lived in Southwestern Idaho, I would find the language and mannerisms (cultural dancing and folkstories) remarkably similar to Hawaiian culture.

[Kalalau]

Re: The Baja Connection

Lately there has been a theory floated that the Americas were not populated by a march across a land bridge, but on little fishing expeditions along the exposed coastline during the last ice age. The interior of the continent was covered in glaciers and uninhabitable. Some surveys of possible fishing village sites have been done where the coastline would have been then, with some positive results. This theory explains why some remains have been found in South America that are many thousands of years older than remains found in North America.

But is it possible that long, long ago there might have even been trans Pacific expeditions? Supposedly a tribe of indians in Central America is ethnically Chinese. What other explanation could there be?

And wasn't the original name of Hawai'i, Hawa iki, small Hawa? So what was big Hawa? Java?

This makes you appreciate the scale of time. There were living, breathing, passionate human beings just like us walking, working, loving 1,000 years ago; 2,000 years ago, 5,000 years ago...and unless Rev. Haggee gets his way there will be humans just like us 5,000 years in the future. Maybe they will wonder about us. Maybe something we are doing now will be a complete mystery to them, or the answer to a mystery for them.