benlizross wrote in message ...
Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:

benlizross wrote:

[snip]

I was going to ask you for a reference, but then I noticed that this is
just a selection from the list in Heyerdahl 1952, pp. 92ff. Ho hum.

Ross Clark

I see... So it seems like, according to Dr. Clark's system
of values,

1. Anything that Heyerdahl has ever said is automatically
wrong.

No, this is not entirely correct.

Well, now we would expect Dr. Clark to specify which of
Heyerdahl's contributions to Polynesian history may be
important.

You don't seem to be reading at all carefully these days.
I simply rejected your ridiculous suggestion that everything H ever said
was "automatically" wrong.

Well, here was a chance for Dr. Clark to demonstrate his objectivity,
and to offer us a few balanced comments about Heyerdahl and his work.

But, alas, this was not to be... and Dr. Clark declined to demonstrate
his objectivity. Perhaps because he doesn't have any?

But, I'm afraid, Dr. Clark has been remarkably short on
specifics of late...

Still haven't learned how to work Google Groups yet?

Still short on specifics?

2. Any subject upon which Heyerdahl had ever touched is
automatically tainted, and is no longer worth talking about.

No, this is completely wrong.


No doubt these assumptions do simplify Dr. Clark's Universe
considerably...

No doubt you have not misunderstood what I said quite as completely as
you pretend to. I mentioned the list from H because you posted it here
already some 4 years ago, and, judging by today's posts, I am sure you
have nothing further to add to it.

Ross Clark

Have you yet dealt with what had already been posted some 4
years ago?

I guess not... So let me help you here a bit. Here's the
goods,

[quote what had already been posted some 4 years ago]

The following info is all brought together in Heyerdahl's
AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE PACIFIC, pages 92ff.

- special similarities between NWC and NZ, noted by Capt.
Cook
- similar double canoe
- same type of rudimentary sail used both on NWC and in NZ
- the sewing of wood
- same canoes, and same techniques of canoe-making
- same canoe-decorations
- the special neolithic elbow adze: identical on NWC and in
Polynesia.
- the rectangular plank-house
- similar house facade decorations, and house-posts
- mortuary and ancestral poles
- very similar petroglyph designs
- identical pounders and pestles
- identical hand-clubs (patu clubs)
- various fishing implements, especially the halibut hook
- the earth oven
- bark-cloth manufacture

[unquote]

Well, I notice you've still got "bark-cloth" in there, even though it
was made clear to you at the time that the NW coast peoples did not make
bark-cloth.

Yes, as I recall it, we'd established that, while the actual cloth
that was made by the Canadian Indians and the Maoris was very similar,
still and all the modern scholars have made up different names for it.
So this was seen as highly significant...

We also dealt with the earth-oven here quite recently. It's
very widespread, no evidence of anything special.

The earth-oven was the same, but this cannot be used as proof.

And you can take out the word "special", which is a kind of pixie-dust
that Thor likes to sprinkle on various descriptions.

Let's quibble about a word now!

Dr. Clark doesn't like the word "special".

This leaves us with a lot of artefacts that (in Thor's opinion) are
"similar" or "very similar" or "identical".

No, here you show your ignorance again (or perhaps your poor
memory)... In lots of peoples' opinion. How about Claude Levi-Strauss,
for example?

And here I fear we are
likely to get into the same impasse as we did with the "totem poles" a
while ago. You will look at them and say they are so similar they must
be related, whereas others will look at them and not see such a
similarity, beyond what one might expect from functional constraints,
chance resemblance, and common inheritance from an Asian past.

Yes, I know, the word "similar" has a very different meaning in Dr.
Clark's private vocabulary.

And, knowing this, I, of course, have those long lists of S American
plants that seem to have come to all sorts of places around the
Pacific, including Polynesia, in ancient times! 36 of them, in fact!

Available from here,

Easter Island and Polynesia
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/tran/teaster.htm

Even Dr. Clark cannot deny that they are not only similar, but...
actually the same!

So let's see him squirm now.

But if you can expand on one or two items and add something to what's on
the bare list, we might be able to have a discussion. What's special
about the halibut hook, for example? Since the Polynesians didn't catch
halibut, what would be the corresponding Polynesian hook?

Ross Clark

What's the point?

I already know that the word "similar" has a very different meaning in
Dr. Clark's private vocabulary. So he doesn't have to demonstrate it
all over again...

OTOH if someone else is interested, we can talk about these things
further.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices -=O=- William James