Racism in Thor Heyerdahl's theories?

Was Thor Heyerdahl's search for a lost people of megalith builders, with fair skin and red hair, a racist theory? From time to time, writers and researchers make this claim. Most are well argued, but some contain many errors and personal interpretations.

The latest work is Thor Heyerdahl and the Search for Atlantis (2019), published in Norwegian. Last year, Eirik Stokke and Reidar Solsvik reviewed the most problematic arguments presented in the book. This review contains new information about a central event in Heyerdahl's life, and comments on many of the general charges against his research. We are therefore making it available here in an English translation, despite the fact that the book itself is only available in Norwegian. See link further down in the text.

The general claim

In recent years, critical readings of Thor Heyerdahl's work claim that his theories themselves use terminology and explanatory models that are racist. It is especially Heyerdahl's theory about the settlement of Polynesia, most comprehensively described in American Indians in the Pacific: The Theory Behind the Kon-Tiki Expedition (1952) which has attracted attention. In this book, Heyerdahl claims that the easternmost islands of Polynesia were first settled by a white race of megalithic builders, or "culture bearers", whom he traced to the Americas, and potentially through Mesoamerica, back to Africa.

Graham E.L. Holtons article, Heyerdahls Kon Tiki Theory and the Denial of the Indigenous Past (2004), is often credited as the first in recent times to make these accusations. But, as Holton himself points out, claims of an inherent racism in Heyerdahl's theories can be traced back to the 1950s. More recently, the matter has been addressed by Victor Melander, in his 2019 article David’s Weapon of Mass Destruction: The reception of Thor Heyerdahls 'Kon-Tiki-Theory'.

Why has this argument not affected the discussion of Thor Heyerdahl's work and theories until now?

The answer can be summarized in four points:

1. The terminology and explanatory models, used by Heyerdahl in American Indians of the Pacific and in other writings, were the "current standard" of methods in geography, archeology and ethnology in the 1920s and 1930s, and even later. Today, many of these views are seen as racist, but at the time this was not necessarily the case. The sentence was reserved for people who had a personal or political conviction about racism.

2. Thor Heyerdahl, who was a self-educated man in the fields of ethnology and archaeology, was made aware even before the publication of American Indians in the Pacific that some of his terminology and explanatory models could be seen as racist. Therefore, to avoid being misunderstood, he introduced the term 'Caucasian-like', and was careful to emphasize that the white cultural bearers of his Kon-Tiki theory were not Caucasians per se (1952:225n1, cf. 343-345 ). ).

3. The "hierarchy of values between superior (white) and inferior (brown and black) people" that leads critics to "highlight racism as a key factor in Heyerdahl's work" (Melander 2019:2) is not complete history. Some passages in American Indians of the Pacific appear to take a more nuanced view of these important questions.

4. Later writings, such as Early Man and the Ocean (1978), reinforce his trend away from racial or cultural stereotyping. Perhaps the use of problematic terminology and explanatory models in some of his earlier writings was a product of Heyerdahl's self-education in these subjects.

But more importantly, Thor Heyerdahl never portrayed himself as a racist. On the contrary, he had a personal conviction that all races are equally valuable. This belief was the very core of why he studied cultural history. His work arose and reflected his view of humanity.Personlig kontakt med raseideolog Hans F. K. Günther

In 1936-37, Thor Heyerdahl and his first wife, Liv, spent a year on the island of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas. On their way home to Norway, the couple visited the German racial ideologue Hans F. K. Günther in Berlin. Günther's wife was a friend of Liv's mother, and the young couple wanted an insider's help to sell their collection of zoological specimens and ethnological and archaeological artefacts. This collection was to bind them financially until Heyerdahl's travelogue, which he was to write, was to be published.

This meeting has piqued the interest of various biographers and researchers, who might expect a connection between Heyerdahl's white race of culture bearers and his association with a Nazi racialologist. However, this one-off visit is the only contact between the two that is recorded. And here one would hope that the matter could be put to rest, but unfortunately this does not seem to be the case.

In autumn 2019, a young Norwegian historian, Per Ivar Hjeldsbakken Engevold, published a study of Thor Heyerdahl's work and theories with the title Thor Heyerdahl and the Search for Atlantis. Boken gir seg ut for å være en dybdestudie av Heyerdahls teoretiske rammeverk. Den hevder at alle hans ulike teorier om kulturell forbindelse og migrasjoner er koblet sammen i en hyperdiffusjonists søken etter en hvit mesterrase. Denne teorien er visstnok inspirert av Hans F. K. Günther.

The book purports to be an in-depth study of Heyerdahl's theoretical framework. It claims that all of his various theories of cultural connection and migrations are connected in a hyperdiffusionist's quest for a white master race. This theory is supposedly inspired by Hans F. K. Günther.

The book is full of the author's personal assumptions and is influenced by flawed research. Some events in Thor Heyerdahl's life, such as his contact with Hans F. K. Günther, are particularly influenced by this, leading to interpretations that go far beyond the current evidence. In a subsequent debate, Eirik Stokke and Reidar Solsvik wrote a longer review of the book, which was published by the Kon-Tiki museum. Since this article corrects some basic facts related to Thor Heyerdahl's connection with Hans F. K. Günther, and details some of the evidence found in Heyerdahl's writings, pointing out that he does not have a racist view of cultural development and prehistoric migrations, we are making this article available in a translated and slightly rewritten version: White Gods, White Researchers, White Lies, av Eirik Stokke og Reidar Solsvik (2019).

Good research on the subject

Engevold did not properly research the subject he was allegedly investigating. Apart from suspicions of plagiarism, which made headlines in some Norwegian news media, this is the reviewers' main problem with the book.

However, many Heyerdahl critics do in-depth research on the subjects in their books and papers, and these books and papers deserve to be read. Here are just a few:

Axel Andersson, A Hero for the Atomic Age: Thor Heyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki Expedition (2010, 2. revidert utgave 2018). This book is an in-depth study of how Heyerdahl's most famous expedition became one of the founding myths of the post-war world. Andersson also critically examines Thor Heyerdahl's theory of the settlement of Polynesia, including what he believes to be problematic aspects of it.

A HERO for the ATOMIC AGE

Axel Andersson, 2010

Victor Melander represents the most recent research on the subject. He has for the past few years critically examined the origin and subsequent development of Thor Heyerdahl’s theory on the settlement of Polynesia, and is currently finishing his Ph.D. on the subject at the Australian National University.

1. The Head-hunters of the North and the Polynesian Shadow: Thor Heyerdahl’s skull-collecting act on Fatu Hiva, Marquesas Islands, 1937, was published in Journal of Pacific Archaeology, 2017, volume 8, no. 1.

2. The paper A Better Savage than the Savages: Thor Heyerdahl's Early Ethnographical Attempts and their Importance for the Development of the ‘Kon-Tiki Theory’ was published in The Journal of Pacific History, 2019.

3. The paper David’s Weapon of Mass Destruction: The Reception of Thor Heyerdahl’s ‘Kon-Tiki Theory’ was published in Bulletin of the History of Archaeology, 2019, volume 29, no. 1.

Is there racism in Thor Heyerdahl’s theories?

Could you find racism in Thor Heyerdahl’s theories? No, you cannot, but as any complex question it can be qualified and discussed. The main point is that it depends on how you define racism. If racism is defined as a personal conviction that some races are better than others, then there is absolutely no racism in Thor Heyerdahl’s writings. If you define racism as an impersonal structure, evidenced by which words are used or whether or not a model of explanation is used, that may have originated one or two generations prior, without any qualifications – well, in that case you may find traces of racism in his writings. However, for every paragraph you find that could be interpreted as racist, you will also find a paragraph demonstrating that Thor Heyerdahl did not view ‘black’ or ‘primitive’ as inferior in any way.

The famous writer Shelby Foot, author of perhaps the most popular book on the American Civil War, once said the following about the writing of history:

And that's the way I think history should be written. As if you were living in that time. It's totally unfair to look at it from a hundred-and-fifty odd years later and pass judgement on what those people did without knowing what their values were and what the laws were even. It's what causes an awful lot of misunderstandings trying to apply a different set of standards to a different, a different nation really.

This is to the point. Past societies were different, and they will never fit if we try to interpret them with our standards.

Thor Heyerdahl danser på en lokal festival i Tucumé, Peru (Foto: Walter Leonardi).