A considerable body of corroborative evidence, of a linguistic as well as a cultural order, attests to the authenticity of traditional tales referring to contacts between the islands of Oceania and the American continent during the pre-Columbian era.
In the first place, it is well known that there is close resemblance between some words in the languages of the western watershed of South America and those of Oceania, notably the Polynesian. These similarities have to do with words designating certain cultivated plants and other objects.