THUNDER OVER THOR

Thor Heyerdahl may feel “the problem of the original settling of Polynesia was one of the greatest whodunits of all times,” but I am surprised this view has been passed along unchallenged in the recent review of his “Easter Island” book.

It has been generally accepted for some time that Polynesia was settled by peoples originally from Southeast Asia. The evidence for that origin is overwhelming and includes the ancient Polynesian expertise in navigation. The islanders may never have heard of Greenwich Mean Time, but their land-finding rivaled that of Captain Cook’s.

Heyerdahl is a great adventurer and storyteller, and I too was and am still enthralled by his classic Kon-Tiki journey. However, that marvelous adventure never proved Polynesia (including Easter Island) was settled from South America. What Kon-Tiki proved, as someone has noted, was that a balsa raft and the men aboard it could survive such a trip--and little else.

While I have not read “Easter Island,” it seems to cover much the same ground as Heyerdahl’s 1958 “Aku-Aku,” which also purports to give us the secret of Easter Island. Although the island is remote, it was not immune to Polynesian settlement, whether purposeful or accidental.

DAWN WALKER

LOS ANGELES