I remember Lemuria

“Eden in the East” is a 500+ pages tour de force by British author Stephen Oppenheimer, a former doctor who used to work in Southeast Asia and New Guinea, immersing himself in the local cultures. In his book, Oppenheimer proposes that some of the roots of “Western”, Indian and Chinese civilization are Southeast Asian in origin. He postulates the existence of a relatively advanced founder culture in Sundaland, an ancient landmass connecting the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo and Java. Sundaland was flooded at the end of the last Ice Age.

Oppenheimer believes that the ancestors of modern Austronesians and Austro-Asiatics lived in Sundaland (most archeologists place the origins of Austronesians in China). The survivors of the catastrophic floods migrated to present-day Indonesia, the Philippines, parts of New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, but also to Southeast Asia and India. They influenced the budding high cultures in India, Tibet, Sumeria and Egypt through their long-distance trading networks. Indirectly, they also influenced the Uralic peoples, whose languages are distantly related to Asiatic ones. Oppenheimer's scenario entails that most of Southeast Asian and Pacific history/archaeology has to be backdated thousands of years, including the Polynesian expansion, and he spends considerable time attempting to prove his point. In general, Oppenheimer holds that Southeast Asia was more advanced during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age than traditionally assumed, and that these cultures were connected to other high cultures in southern China and Japan (Jomon).

To Oppenheimer, the Deluge legends are about an actual historical event (or events), the previously mentioned floods at the end of the last Ice Age, which affected the whole world. Even more controversially, the author argues that the Biblical narratives of creation and Eden are ultimately derived from Southeast Asian myths, and so are the well-known legends of “world trees” and “the dying and rising gods”. Cain and Abel is also originally a Southeast Asian story. The author doesn't believe that Christian missionary influence can account for all the similarities – some legends were written down by baffled Westerners (including missionaries!) before Christian influence became pervasive. Many of the “Western” legends are most diverse at the Moluccas in Indonesia, suggesting they originated there.

It's interesting to note that the Sumerians had a peculiar legend about “amphibious” culture-heroes who came by sea from the East. Could they have been Austronesian sea-fearers from the lost Sundaland culture? Both Eden and Nod were said to be in the east. In India, there are legends about an ancestral homeland in the east. By contrast, Polynesians have legends about an ancestral homeland in the West, which is no longer accessible to mortals! At the Tonga islands, the homeland is said to be in the northwest specifically. All these geographical references point to Sundaland, east of India (and Mesopotamia) but west or northwest of the Pacific Islands. Apparently, Tongans also believed in a large landmass further east of their islands. America?

To students of occultism, the concept of Sundaland should sound familiar. Yes, it's Lemuria or Mu! Oppenheimer does have a soft spot for “forbidden knowledge”, referencing Graham Hancock, Charles Hapgood and Immanuel Velikovsky. He probably stands in the proud alternative tradition of neo-catastrophism. However, his arguments are not based on occult or alternative sources. Instead, the author tries to argue scientifically on the basis of archaeology, linguistics, genetics and comparative mythology. I admit that I only skimmed most chapters – they are filled with incredible amounts of detailed information! Ironically, this large door-stopper of a book nevertheless feels only half-done. Among subjects *not* touched upon are: the mysterious culture of Easter Island, possible connections between East Asia/Polynesia and America during the Bronze Age, the origin of the Dravidian and Sumerian peoples, and the exact relation between Indo-European mythology (which also includes the World Tree) and that of Southeast Asia. Nor does the author say much about “Lemurian” influence on China. He also seems to have problems with Atlantis, regarding it as a peculiarly erroneous myth, since the real founder culture was in the East. The Atlantis story, of course, places it in the West! But why should this be a problem? Many landmasses were flooded after the Ice Age…

Oppenheimer is mildly uncomfortable with some aspects of the rich mythology he has unearthed. In New Guinea and Tonga, the aliens from across the sea are often depicted as light-skinned, while the natives are dark-skinned. To the author, this suggests relative differences in skin tone, Austronesians being less dark than Papuans (presumably, the Austronesian Tongans were pitted against even less dark Austronesians from a later migration). Even so, it's certainly weird that a negative view of Black skin existed already during this early period! The author believes that the sea-farers from Sundaland were pitted against Austroloids and Negritos in New Guinea, the Malay Peninsula and perhaps India. The identification between fairer skin and higher status was later applied to the White Europeans, for instance in cargo cults.

I was surprised by “Eden in the East”. Oppenheimer may not be a “real” scholar, and he has a tendency to take an idea and run with it, but his ideas certainly deserve a hearing. The book may be “fringe”, but it's not crazy, conspiracist or unduly fanatic. After reading it, I'm convinced that “Lemuria” actually existed, although I can't vouch for every concrete detail in this voluminous work. Even so, four stars!