Annex 13 – Evidence of Chinese fleets visiting Ecuador
1. Maps and star charts
· Ecuador is shown on the Waldseemueller (1507)
2. Chinese Records and Claims
· Chinese book Illustrated Record of Strange Countries (1430) shows animals unique to S. America.
3. Accounts of contemporary European historians and Explorers
· “Giants came by sea to settle amongst them” (Garcilaso de la Vega /Pedro de Cieza de Leon).
4. Accounts of Local People
· Inca legends – white bearded Inca Emperor “200 years before Spanish Conquest”.
· Sir Francis Drake captures ship “with Chinese pilots” aboard who had charts and sailing directions to cross Pacific from Peru, bound for Philippines
5. Linguistics and languages common to China and New World
· The name Inca = Yinca (people from Yin) (Martin Tai).
6. Shipwrecks, Chinese anchors and fishing gear found in the wake of the treasure fleet
· First Spanish to Chile found wrecked Chinese junks (Grotius).
7. Chinese porcelain and ceramics found in the wake of the treasure fleet
· Betty Meggers’ theory of trans-Pacific trade between Ecuador and Japan: Jomon / Valdivia connection
8. Pre-Columbian Chinese jade found in the wake of the treasure fleet
Further research needed
9. Artefacts, gems, votive offerings, coins and funerary urns
In 1973, while working at a forestry camp near the mouth of the Esmeraldas River in Ecuador, a reader was shown an excavation site which was said to contain Chinese artefacts. It was being guarded by the Ecuadorian army. Does anyone have any new information on this site? – Dennis Holden
10. Stone buildings, artefacts, canals and aqueducts
· Inca cement/road building (Humboldt and Ondegardo – W H Prescott).
11. Mining operations found by first Europeans when they reached the New World
Further research needed
12. Advanced technologies found by first Europeans on arrival in New World
Further research needed
13. Plants indigenous to one continent, found on another
· Sweet potatoes (more than 20 varieties) exported from S America found by first Europeans in New Zealand and across Pacific. Same methods, freeze drying/soaking used in Ancash province (Peru) and New Zealand.
· 74 separate plants exported from S America to Australia found by early Europeans.
14. Animals indigenous to one continent, found on another
· Horses seen by first Europeans (Acosta)
· Chinese ship’s dogs (Acosta)
· Elephants to Peru and Chile (Ranking). Elephants seen, wild, by Capt. Cochrane
· Elephant bones at Tarija 220 S.
15. Distinctive artwork carried from continent to continent
· Meggers’ Jomon / Valdivia Trans-Pacific trade connection
16. Customs and games exported from China to New World
· Folklore identical quipu,to Chinese (para 25).
· Divination practices identical to Chinese
· Methods of herding game into predetermined spot – identical to Mongolian methods (Cavill, also Garcilaso de la Vega).
· Quipu – same name used in China.
· Method of recording numbers (knots) and meaning (colours) similar to China: white = silver or peace; yellow = gold, red = war.
· Same method for dating lunar month, solar year approx every 12 years additional month added (WH Prescott).
· Same method for recording time – gnomon (sun’s azimuth (W H Prescott))
· In Quito Museum they display a “Pan Pipe” known there as a “Quena” and made seemingly of ceramic. It plays the same as the bamboo Cambodian/Thai “Khe-eng” or the more rustic Sabah instrument. (Dr George Yuille Caldwell)
· Ancient Indian cure for illness in Cuenca, Ecuador during which they ‘massage’ the head, arms and chest and beat the head with herbs, extremely similar to what is taught in Tai Ji classes. The movement of the hands over the body, arms and head are parallel to standard Qijong treatments. Also, Chinese medicine also includes herbal treatments. Could this practice have been brought to Ecuador by the Chinese voyagers? (Keith Foster)
A reader and his wife visited Ecuador in March this year. The museum “Banco Central Del Ecuador Museo” in the coastal city of Manta has a display of native housing for the period between 350BC and 650AD. House styles seen there were apparently very similar to the Chinese architecture of the same period – Allen Lee
17. Armour, metal weapons and metal implements found in the New World
Further research needed
18. Trans-oceanic spread of diseases from one continent to another.
· Roundworm, hookworm otherwise common to S E Asia (see Bibliography).
19. DNA and physiological comparisons
· Polymorphic Alu Insertions and the Asian Origin of Native American populations by Gabriel E Novick and Colleagues – refer to Bibliography
Close similarity between the Chinese and native Americans suggest regent gene flow from Asia – Inca people of Ecuador have “Chinese” DNA
· DNA of ‘Juanita’ the ice maiden (Kyoto University) shows she has ‘Taiwanese’ DNA (Arequipa University Report)
20. Meteorological events and weather
Further research needed
21. Stars and navigation
Further research needed
View maps: The Waldseemüller map, The Piri Reis map, The Cantino world map
