Prologue

An ancient seafaring people driven both by a desire for wealth and power, and deep spiritual beliefs circled the globe throughout much of history helping to shape today’s world. As fanciful as that might sound, countless historians, archaeologists, antiquarians and others have interpreted existing evidence in just this way. The trail of this mysterious culture to them was simply too obvious and could not be explained by mere coincidence.

The purpose of this blog is to show that just such a culture did exist and to explain it in ways not done before. I would like to offer the evidence that my own ancestors, who spoke Austronesian languages, were these seafaring people who greatly impacted the world we live in today. My purpose is to provide a first-hand view from one whose worldview is partially shaped by the old Austronesian speakers, and one who has learned much from the elders.

The tale is one that starts during the transition from the latter part of the Middle Stone Age to medieval times and from Southeast Asia and the Pacific to Europe and the Americas.

The historical events covered range from the great spice trade to the legends of Shambhala and Prester John.

For millennia, mystery cults found within these seafaring people battled on spiritual and mundane planes based on their contrasting beliefs in a society charged with dualism. I will give my own interpretations of the symbols they left and their meanings.

One would not be surprised that Austronesian speakers should have already been considered for any theories of this kind. The Austronesian language family, comprised of two great branches, the Malayo-Polynesian and Formosan, expanded rapidly by sea millennia ago. In fact, you will find many established scholars who would agree that by about 200 AD, the Austronesian-speaking people's geographic range was not much different than it is today.

Since at least the time of the Lapita expansion into the Pacific, usually dated between 1800 and 1500 BC to the "Age of Exploration" about 500 years ago, the Austronesian languages had been the most widely dispersed of any widely recognized language family. Yet, only a few have thought to consider these people beyond the range of their present languages.

Although a few researchers had explored this subject starting a few centuries ago, it was Bunkminster Fuller, an architect, futurist and sometime historian of science and engineering, who first suggested that Austronesian speakers had not received the credit they were due. Although not well equipped to analyze the linguistic aspects of his argument, Fuller had an extraordinary insight into the development of building and engineering concepts. His study of hydraulic and maritime technology and of "tensile" systems brought him to the conclusion that Austronesian people had developed and diffused many important things.

Sumet Jumsai, a Thai researcher augmented greatly the research of Fuller in Naga : cultural origins in Siam and the West Pacific , and more recently, Dr. Stephen Oppenheimer, in his book Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia has explored this subject in great detail.

But don't worry this blog will a great deal of stuff found nowhere else.

For those who need a little background on this subject, I will recommend some web reading:

Please review my own history page with some relevant background
articles:
http://asiapacificuniverse.com/pkm/historypage.htm

Don't worry if you get lost in some of the details and terminology. I will try to clear this all up as we go along.