Incas' Oceangoing Balsa Log Raft

What we know about Inca seafaring

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The maritime society in the Pacific developed different

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What happened when the Europeans discovered the South American continent?

In the conflict with the Europeans the Incas were knocked down in an impressing havoc in good Christian style, due to superior weapon technology + unknown illness that killed more men than the arms. A sort of bacteriological war, we could call it, being a great help for the foreigners, freeing them to do so much killing-work themself.

Today this northern country is repopulated by immigration of forreign races - and all earlier culture and their history is erased.

In south: as second consequence the Inca nation too lost their culture and their organizations. Technologically subdued - and still kept down !
Therefor is left so little from their heydays.

Historically

, the Incas learned this in the same moment, as they showed their huge richness of GOLD to the Spanish visitors in Cajamarca 500 years ago - subsequent, as told, they only few years after had lost everything.
But things repeat, and even today the Peruvians have a problem with too much Gold recently found in the region of Cajamarca - in Conga.

By its nature "gold" of every sort, being golden, white or black - solid, powder, paste or liquid - is submitted the same general RULE OF WAR mentioned above.

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The dominance at sea

To meet the balsa rafts was a great surprise for the Spaniards

- even their own ships could hardly take so heavy a load. And from the Spaniards we have the oldest written accounts.
The balsa rafts came from the Manta area, as is on the westmost coast of Ecuador just south of the Equator. There they had the materials to construct the rafts and from there they started sailing up and down the coast
After the deed of Thor Heyerdahl scholars and archaeologists seems to have intensified their work, and have found evidence, that the pre-Columbian seafaring, had its center in the maritime coast-society just under Equator. From what today is called Puerto Viejo their rafts sailed up along the coast to Panama and Acapulco in Mexico and down to Chiclayo, Trujillo and Paracas areas - against south until the northern of Chile.
There are archaeological finds as indicate a frequent mercantile interchange together with transfer of technology.

We don't know any historical nor archaeological argument for Heyerdahl's choice of Callao as port of departure for his Kon-tiki expedition, there were never before mentioned rafts starting out from Callao, until he did it in 1947. It seems as a result of an arranged meeting with the peruvian president Jose Bustamante y Rivero, as of narrow political reasons offered the service of the per uvian navy.
Now it is a part of the "Heyerdahl concept", and Callao has developed as a main start-port for oceangoing Rafts - at least for Norwegian rafts.
Callao was founded by the Spaniards, as a lovely site for anchorage, protected from the ocean waves by a natural breakwater: the Island of San Lorenzo.

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The people from Manta continued their sailings too under the Spaniards but their oceangoing rafts disappeared together with other big sailships by arrival of steamers and motorships of iron. The route up and down the coasts have still no contemporary raft accomplished, even there have been attempts. On the other side the descendant in form of smaller rafts are still sailing on the coasts of Ecuador.

According to old legends reproduced by the Spaniards, and published by the peruvian historian María Rostworowski, the later Inca Tupac Yupanki around year 1465 (after his conquest of Quito) sailed out from Manta to the islands of Mangareva (23°S and 135°W) - then to Tahiti (17°S - 147°W), returning via RapaNui (27°S - 109°W) - and then back to Puerto Viejo (1°S - 80°W).
He sailed out with a company of 1000 men on 50 balsas of which the bigger were made of 13 logs, had two huts and two masts. He returned after one year round trip.

The mean for the Inca comunication system is called Quipu (also spelled khipu or quipo). Quipus were the Inca's written messages = their comunication mean to administrate and keep together the Empire. It seems as every Empire need a comunication system to exist. Quipus is the only known pre-Columbian comunication means system in South America - in Central America both the Aztecs and the and the Mayas had their own system.
A Quipu consists of knots tied on wool and cotton strings and dyed with certain colors - and not symbols carved in wood nor clay tablets neither painted on papyrus, paper nor vellum.
Quipus were a knotted "page" of information as easily could be sent by running messengers and interpreted across all their civilization.
All Quipus were gathered by the Spanish church and burned as heretic, diabolic or heathen - to make a stop for the Andean Deity. The same happened in Central America.

Less than thousand Quipus have survived around in museums and collections, and nobody today can interpret them. Therefore nobody knows if they could tell something about seafaring and the Balsa Rafts? I guess we need to wait for an investigator as understand the soul of the language - that means a person with roots in the Quechua-society - to be able to decode these Quipus.

Inca language today

The most spoken native languages in South America is Quechua, the Inca's language - also the biggest native language as has survived in all America. Quechua is still spoken by around 10 millions of persons. Ref: Quechua language
In their striving to transfer the messages from the Bible onto their community many clergymen have expressed the sounds of the local dialects of Quechua into words written by latin letters. Each dialect their own diccionary and each wird with special spelling!

The result is as if a woman has got "half pregnant":  Such a hard breed-work serves for nothing because it will not bring any baby. Here: a letter written in one region can't be read in another.

On the web-site of Quechua-people we can demonstrate 6 alphabets with many 'surprise-letters' and many 'right writing dictionaries' = as give us different dialectal spellings for the same word in the quechua language. Ref: Quechua dialects
We can here compare with all bigger colonial languages, as in spite of used in many continents and countries are kept united by one and only one 'right writing'.

Well - it is the task for the Quechua speaking themselves to unite their writings, but that will not happen without some political support from the National States.

Conclusion: we can't expect survived lore expressed in any Quechua dialect. Ref: Quechua survival

 

The last balsa rafts left

The last oceangoing Balsa raft was reported 1910.

What we know today comes mostly from historical and literary studies of what some of the first Europeans have heard and seen in this new world - and then have written down.

From then and until the balsa rafts disappeared 1910 we have 3-400 years. That means that there may be much material, that neither is collected, registered nor investigated. One more task for the historians.
On the other side, if the descriptions from all the years are mixed without taken in consideration that during the years and generations, the European technology has been transmitted and mixed in with the original American - then we too could have a source for misunderstandings.
There are neither much investigation of, what we could call the natural base for the existence of those Balsa Rafts: Technology employed on the rafts, tools and methods at disposal for the construction of rafts nor the raw material present in the area - at that time.
Because of this lack of knowledge around what they then could, much misconception is sneaking in. Tools and technology from other parts of the World is creeping into our interpretation and filling up this emptieness.

Evidences from a Past:

The sketch made by lieutenant later admiral F.E.Paris 1841 is the only one we have found showing technical details in the construction of a native balsa raft. The raft is from the north-west coast of South America. The maximum length of the raft is 80-90 feet, maximum width of a raft is 25-30 feet - and with a freight capacity of 20-25 tons. Double size of Kon-tiki.

The curved yard

is something totally unseen in the western hemisphere, outside the balsa sail area - and we have no experience. A curved yard is a light construction, tied together of three parts (ref: Brunning photo#1) and therefor not so heavy to hoist in a mast, as at least in Inca-time hadn't any block nor sheave in the top.
On the photo the halyard is passing over a block of some sort, tied at the top of mast. On this drawing we clearly can se both the braces and one single row of reefs on top of sail (what seems very few), but we can't see any parrel - what we too agree could be a little complicated on an A-mast.
A light yard can be more flexible - as a fishing rod - why it shouldn't break so easily. It remind of the flexible lateen yard.   
If there are any aerodynamic advantage in this curved construction? As said: we don't have any experience. The drawing verify that an A-mast only need stays and no shrouds.

A photo is showing details as we can't find on a drawing, but these photos are 50 years = two generations younger than the drawing.
This photo#1 of a balsa by Brüning show some interesting details.

1): Over the balsa trunks for buoyancy is tied a layer of crossbeam-trunks to keep together the balsa-logs. Upon them are placed a few longitudinal going trunks, as seems used mainly to lift the deck aun higher from the sea.
That third layer we have never seen or heard about before.
Then at top we have the deck as a fourth layer of timber or whatever they used as deck for crew and cargo.

2): The sail seems rather high and large for a craft of that size - holding around 15 meters in height and 10 meters width.

3): The yard is curved, and build by three sections and seems more across the raft than the fastening of tack and sheet indicate. We don't know why it is so, but perhaps it has a function as an airfoil - to add an aerodynamic pull, when the wind is passing from the port side and over the curved surface of the sail. On the photo we can't see any braces, and we have no experience with curved yards, but that turn us back to the old theme for dispute: if the wind on sail Push - or Pull?

4): The strange claw, as is seen where the bow-line is attached on fore leech, could look like the fork-end of a spar, a sprit, a pole as probably is supported by the foot of mast and attack the leech in an eye.
If that is the case, it signify that there are no force from bowline hauling against fore stay nor downwards on their curved yard - with other words, it is possible for them to position the fix point of the leech where they want and therefor it is easier to "screw" the sail, as it seems they have done.
(We DON'T KNOW that trick from our own one-masted square-sailors.)

5): The mast as is a single-mast and not A. It seems supported by three stays only and we can't see any shrouds. That is a solution as is known from land-based masts for aerials.

If the Bruning Museum has more photos of Rafts - that is not known

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The messages from Early drawings

Our problems with early drawings seems to be many, and one of the obstacles is that so little information is left from the Incas - and the drawings and sketches as exist is often object for misinterpretion, mainly because they were drawn under other conditions and with other purpose than we use today.
Some examples:
One of the earliest drawings is due to Admiral Joris Van Spilbergh, who visited Paita year 1615, when he as a consequence of the Dutch War of Independence was send on a raid around the world to loot the Spanish colonies.

The sketches are a product of hand drawings made perhaps long time after. I suspect that both the raft with the condor and that with triangualr sails were placed in the scenery of the Payta harbour - placed to fill an empty area on a drawing made years after the raid. To tell a story.

The hand copying technique of at that time was by a glass-plate and a candle and the result were always: link MIRRORED
To be exact they had to be mirrored two times - or copied as pure free-hand drawings.

Two extracts from Gutenberg EBook around Joris van Spilbergh: "Voyage of George Spilbergen around the world, in 1614-17": (Note: The original document of the admiral was written in Latin language"
1): "On this occasion they took a Peruvian bark, strangely rigged, having 6 stout natives on board, who have been out fishing for two month and had a cargo of excellent dried fish, which was distributed through the fleet." - (seized or paied ?)
2): "While on island of Lobos, the Dutch took two birds of enormous size, not unlike an eagle in beak, wings and talons; their neck being covered with down resembling wool, and their heads having combs like those of a cock. They were two ells in height, and their wings, when displayed, measured three ells in breadth."
And that was van Spilbergen's experience and adventure !

So, it is confirmed, that a such strange rigged craft they really meet - and took, and therefor she is drawn on the image from the bay of Payta, and that is the message of the drawing: to tell a story. But many scholars have since taken this subordinated detail out of its main and analyzed it separately. The sail is often named in the running literature around rafts, and she has raised much "technical" discussion among "scholars" in Post Heyerdahl time.
What is wrong?
The draughtsman probably wasn't seaman and couldn't therefor catch all the smaller maritime specialities in his memory for later put them down on paper - so I expect the raft drawing is mixed up with whatever. My guess as sailor is, that the raft has had a Crab-Claw sail as was rather common out among the pacific islands, whereas a Crab-Claw was unknown in the European region - and as Indigenous matter therefor inferior for a Dutchman to pay any special attention more than establish as 'a rare case'. The way the rigging is shown for example: For his reproduction the draftsman picked up the bent mast, but sitting down in his cabin perhaps long time after, drawing the sheet and underleech, he sketched-out something he knew from home - from the lateen sail. Note specially the drawing 'Payta 1' - the sheet of fore sail is drawn as fixed on wrong side of the raft. That is 'Good Enough' for that illustrative purpose, but not as archaeological documentation.
My evaluation says, that both rafts (this with a condor and that with curved mast) are drawn of decorative reasons on that sketch of a battle - or to tell a good story - or simply to fill out an empty space on the paper. At least we know, that very few raft will sail voluntary into an active battle field as is indicated here.
My personal interpretation is, that the drawing is made some years after, by Spilbergen's return to Holland -

Lateen - or crab claw sail

 

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