The first field project

Fatu Hiva (1937-1938)

Fatuhiva in Polynesia is the place where Thor Heyerdahl started to think about where the Polynesian people actually came from.

Christmas eve in 1936, Thor Heyerdahl married Liv Coucheron Torp. The day after the young couple took the train to Marseille, continued by boat across the Atlantic, through the Panama channel and all the way to Tahiti where they met with chief Teriieroo. For a month he taught them the language and how to manage life in Polynesia. After that they spent a year on the lonely cliff island Fatu-Hiva in Marquesas. The idea was to investigate how animals could have managed to move all the way out into islands in the Pacific Ocean. At a time the couple got sick and had to visit the neighbor island where they met another Norwegian – Henry Lie. He showed them some stone statues in the jungle, and could also tell that the same kind of statues could be found in Colombia, 6000 kilometers to the east. Living close to the Polynesians Thor Heyerdahl noticed the importance of swiftly flowing water and wind and started to doubt the theories that the Polynesians originated from Asia.

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