ML137958
People
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
- Playback
- Not specified
Media notes
Subject: (Interview). Subtitle: Thor Heyerdahl. Timecode In: 00:00:42. Timecode out: 00:43:06. Notes: Kon Tiki; Ethnology. Equipment Notes: Stereo=1; Dual-Channel Mono. RADIO EXPEDITIONS THOR HEREYDAHL WITH DANNY SWERDLING LOG NG=NO GOOD OK G=GOOD VG=VERY GOOD DAT all quality is VG 0:42 - (interview begins abruptly) 1:12 DZ (asks about his fear of the water as a boy) TH And with very good reasons. Because at the age of 5 I was playing with some bigger boys near an ice hole in a frozen lake and the big boys were jumping from the solid ice onto drifting blocks. And at the age of 5 I thought this looked fun and I jumped too. But you know you have to jump back fast b/f the ice block turns over and I didn't so I went upside down into the hole (DZ - into the frozen water) and into frozen water and what people don't know is that when you're on top well that you know and that the ice is white and the hole is black but when you're down below it's the opposite. Then the ice is black and the light comes through the hole so it's white (DZ - you can remember) so I struggled - yes I remember it very well (DZ - I mean you can visualize now being under the ice) yes - I tried to get up through the black hole and it was solid ice and I bumped my nose and my head and then I don't remember more until some big boys got hold of my boots and pulled me out. So that was the beginning of my experience with deep water. And at the age of 12 I fell in another time in the fjord and almost drowned and so it took me a long time to believe that the ocean was something charming. DZ So you grew up actually thinking of the ocean as a really frightening¿ TH To me that was the enemy, that was the end of the human world, that was where the ocean b/g so for me I was certainly not meant to become a sailor. But I also studied biology not marine biology but I was interested in land animals and land plants and I went to Polynesia for the first time to conduct studies in the Marquesas(?) Islands and that's when I fell into the water for the third time. I was big enough then - 22 - that I realized I better try to swim and I managed and from then on (DZ - so you didn't even know how to swim at the age of 22) 3:48 DZ So looking back on all of this, looking back on these amazing expeditions - Kon-Tiki and all of the others - do you feel at least in part¿ the reason that you undertook these amazing voyages was sort of as a way of confronting and putting to rest these fears of yours? TH No - I don't think so. I think that it all had to do with the fact that I had approached a problem when it came to migrations in the pacific oceans which had been unsolved and instead of approaching it through archaeology and anthropology which would be normal I approached it through biology and I realized that there were certain cultivated plants that man had brought from S. Am. to Polynesia before the Europeans came. So I was sure that in pre-Columbian times S. Am. must have had a population who could navigate in the open oceans and then the archaeologists refused that then they say well do you know you are a biologist you don't know this DZ ¿So when you undertook these amazing expeditions - Kon-Tiki - sailing on a raft from Peru across the Pacific, you were doing it despite your¿you were so convinced that your theories were right that you were doing it despite your terrible fear of the ocean TH I was 100 % certain because I was educated in genetics and genetics don't lie. And I knew that when you have a plant like the sweet potato or the gourd just to take 2 ex. and they belong to S. Am. and they can only spread by human craft across the water, then I knew somebody had gone and then the anthropologists said nobody could have gone before Columbus because these people had only balsa rafts¿ 6:06 DZ (asks how scientists and his f... (Notes truncated)
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
Archival information
- Cataloged
- 15 Oct 2008 - Ben Brotman
- Digitized
- 15 Oct 2008 - Ben Brotman
- Edited
- 15 Oct 2008 - Ben Brotman