This article analyzes two historical episodes in which seafaring leaders were interpreted as divinities by island cultures: the voyage of the Inca Túpac Yupanqui to Oceania in the 15th century and the arrival of Captain James Cook to Hawaii in the 18th century, where he was identified as the god Lono. Drawing on historical, ethnographic, and colonial chronicle sources, the article examines the technological, symbolic, and cultural elements that fostered such confusion. It is proposed that these encounters constituted not only material exchanges but also profound mythological resignifications, in which premodern navigation played a central role in the construction of identities and sacred narratives. This comparative analysis invites us to reconsider Eurocentric narratives about American isolation and to recognize the interoceanic circulation of knowledge and technologies in pre-Columbian and colonial contexts.
Raúl Eleazar Arias-Sánchez (Mon,) studied this question.