Otokichi • Hacker News Board

Re: Otokichi

#11

Post by dyeje » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

yudlejoza wrote: post #5

It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not. Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous. Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge p…

I'm not familiar with boat technology through the ages but it seems like it would be pretty uncommon for someone to survive an accidental journey across the Pacific considering people die doing so in modern times when attempting it intentionally.

Re: Otokichi

#12

Post by opportune » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

yudlejoza wrote: post #5

It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not. Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous. Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge p…

I think this is almost trivially true due to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yupik_peoples

Re: Otokichi

#13

Post by nnf » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

yudlejoza wrote: post #5

It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not. Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous. Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge p…

That's an interesting question, though I wonder if many such people would have survived the journey all the way across the ocean without access to fresh water or an understanding (and the necessary materials) for desalinating seawater. Some may have, but there are lots of filters working against survival, of increasing efficiency the further back in time we look.

Re: Otokichi

#14

Post by themodelplumber » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

Fascinating. Something that made me curious:

> There the ship was fired on repeatedly, and King was not able to accomplish his objective to establish diplomatic contact

So...why not place a brief message into a few bottles and drop them in the waters around the populated zones? "We have here your citizens named so-and-so, and will return around this date, and then this date + about 12M, to try again. Please don't shoot." Include handwritten notes from the survivors to the families / friends.

Surely this method (among others) would stand at least a chance...as compared to ~20 years of unfortunate delay in connection.

Re: Otokichi

#15

Post by masklinn » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

yudlejoza wrote: post #5

It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not. Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous. Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge p…

> Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous.

Most of them would be designated "dead" at the very best. Odds were they wouldn't be designated anything because the ship would sink long before it got through the pacific: aside from polynesian navigators (which likely had at least some pre-columbian contact with the americas) navigation was coast-hugging and ships were simply not designed to survive through the Pacific. And then the crew would still need to survive through a journey they were completely unprepared for.

Not to mention the pacific doesn't really work that way: usually the ship would get caught in the gyres and never make it out, without wilful navigation it'd have incredibly low odds of catching the Alaska current or the equatorial counter-current.

Re: Otokichi

#16

Post by TedDoesntTalk » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #9

yudlejoza wrote: post #5

It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not. Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous. Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge p…

Ship building technology development is an important factor you didn't factor in. You'd need a ship that can survive crossing the pacific and also enough rations of food to survive the trip. In this case they also used some desalination tech to survive those 14 months, per the article. Edit: More details: https://www.historylink.org/File/9065 > The crew had an adequate food supply (rice from the cargo, supplemented w…

From the essay you linked:

"Traces of Japan were not entirely unknown in the Northwest. More than 1,000 Japanese ships are estimated to have disappeared during the Exclusion Era (1633-1854). Most presumably sank in storms, but iron fittings and other remnants of some of those ships washed up on the Northwest coast over time. A few drifted to coastal areas farther south with survivors on board. According to historian Frederik L. Schodt, at least 34 Japanese sailors reached the shores of North America or Mexico on disabled ships between 1806 and 1852. One of the best known cases involved the Tokujomaru, which ran aground near Santa Barbara, California, in 1813, with three survivors out of a crew of 14. But until the Hojunmaru, there is no record of the presence of any Japanese, sailors or otherwise, in what is now the state of Washington."

Re: Otokichi

#17

Post by JamesLeonis » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

yudlejoza wrote: post #5

It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not. Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous. Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge p…

For a direct answer to your question, the Polynesians populated much of the vast Pacific ocean and founded many island native lineages. There is some strong evidence they came into contact with West Coast American natives within the last couple thousand years [0].

> We find conclusive evidence for prehistoric contact of Polynesian individuals with Native American individuals (around AD 1200) contemporaneous with the settlement of remote Oceania. Our analyses suggest strongly that a single contact event occurred in eastern Polynesia, before the settlement of Rapa Nui, between Polynesian individuals and a Native American group most closely related to the indigenous inhabitants of present-day Colombia.

[0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2.epdf

Re: Otokichi

#18

Post by ksm1717 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

I think it’s hilarious that the head of the British colony found 3 random Japanese people (2 of which were not even 18) and sent them to England to attempt to use them as trade diplomats

Re: Otokichi

#19

Post by baxtr » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

I would love to see that life story in a film (any Netflix people around?!). One of the most captivating Wikipedia entries I’ve ever read.

Re: Otokichi

#20

Post by ksm1717 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

yudlejoza wrote: post #5

It just occurred to me, boats have been around way before 1492, and they would drift away by accident, just like in this case, more often than not. Hence, folks from East Asia drifted away and landed on west coast of North America all the time, from time immemorial to 1492, and all of them were designated native/indigenous. Conclusion: Asia to America migration didn't only happen through Bering/Beringia land bridge p…

Check out Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon Tiki expedition. I believe that his theory was about religions and this pacific drift phenomena. There’s a very cool museum outside of Oslo.

I think that their findings have eventually been proven less meaningful than they thought, but still cool.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition