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275complexity plus precise enunciation plus cohesiveness plus polyphony – major featuresof Middle European folk hymnody…(Lomax, 1968:90).The biggest counterargument for any possible connections between the Europeand Polynesia is the huge distance between these two regions. Europe and South Pacificare on the opposite sides of the globe. And it is not only the distance that makes thisconnection unrealistic, but also the fact they are in different hemispheres. I tried to argueearlier, that crossing the hot and wet tropical “ecological belt” for the dwellers ofmoderate and cold regions of the world must have been extremely difficult, and this wasthe reason that both European and East Asian populations traveled extensively along theaxis east-west, or “following the Sun”, without crossing the tropical line. If this was notthis huge distance between the Europe and Polynesia, and if Polynesia was situated, say,somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, “only” couple of thousand kilometers from the Europe,there would most certainly be widely acknowledged historical connection between thevocal polyphony of the Europe and Polynesia. But Polynesia is exactly opposite of theglobe from Europe, behind many thousand kilometers and the unfriendly “tropical belt”for the dwellers of the moderate and cold climatic regions.Amazingly, there is a theoretical possibility that might be worth discussing, atleast from the musical point of view.As we have seen in a “Case Study” discussing the possibility of vocal polyphonyin cultures of ancient Mesopotamian and Mesoamerican civilizations, there is apossibility that traditions of vocal polyphony existed wider in North and South America(including old Mesoamerica). Discussing these traditions, we came to the conclusion thatthe main characteristic features of American polyphony were typologically very close toEuropean polyphonic traditions (the same drone, or even the double drone, and maybethe secondal dissonances).The presence of European features of Polynesian polyphony might be explainedby the at least partial migration of the groups of people from the South and CentralAmerica to the Polynesia. This rout was popularized by the controversy, following theclaims of Thor Heyerdahl about the initial migration of the groups of people from SouthAmerica to Polynesia. The long controversy resulted in acknowledging by most of thescholars that that there has been at least sporadic contacts between the Polynesians andSouth American Indians. For example, bringing and cultivating South American sweetpotato (with the same name) in Polynesia would be impossible without such “personal”contacts. If we take into account the amazingly strong polyphonic traditions ofPolynesians (and I tried to convince readers that the traditions of vocal polyphony mustbe taken into consideration very seriously), then the contacts between the supposedlyEuropean polyphonic elements of South America and Polynesia must have been morethan “sporadic”. (Survey of different ways of colonizing Pacific see Bellwood, 1989.)Very strong polyphonic traditions of Polynesians provide circumstantial supportto the idea of the possible relatively late migration of the groups of the people fromEurope to the Central America via Atlantic Ocean as well. This possibility, generallydismissed as totally unrealistic, receives at least some confirmation from the historicallyquite well documented migration of Indonesians to the Madagascar across the wholeIndian Ocean. The distance between the Indonesia and Madagascar is the same asbetween the Europe and Central America, and the direction is the same as well – from