[Sca-cooks] Polynesia was :Re: Kitchen Tips - It's a Joke, Right??

Huette von Ahrens ahrenshav at yahoo.com
Wed Aug 27 06:12:48 PDT 2008


--- On Wed, 8/27/08, Elise Fleming <alysk at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Polynesia??? No contact pre-1600.  
>
> Alys K.
> 
> Elise Fleming
> alysk at ix.netcom.com
> http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/
> 

Not true.  The British and the French didn't find Polynesia until the 18th century, but the Spanish did.  Mostly by ships that were sailing from South America to the Philippines or Japan.  I believe that the first mention of island sighting was in 1521.  The first actual Spanish/Polynesian human contact was in 1525.  I believe that this occured at the Tuamotu Islands. The Spanish left venereal disease and a couple of priests.  When the ship came back to check up on the priests, quite a few natives had died of VD and the priests begged to be removed from the island because of all the immorality and heathen behaviour of the people.  [I believe that all the naked women were making them question their vows of chastity.]  In 1595, Alvaro de Mendana set off from Peru and found Fatu Hiva by accident. They too left VD that killed a lot of people.  In 1606, Pedro Fernandes de Quiros discovered the Tuamotu Islands again.  It was another 160 years before another
 European "discovered" Polynesia again.


      



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