Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Sam Low, Ph.D.TheproducerofThe Navigators describesastorm-tossed voyage duringwhich MauPiailugoutwits a satellitenavigational computer.

The Polynesians:A Pacific Odyssey 2Patrick V. Kirch, Ph.D.A foremostarchaeologist tellshow scientistshaverevealed the seafaring geniusof Polynesiannavigators.

Wind, Wave, and Stars:A Sea of Natural Signs 8Stephen ThomasMau Piailug teaches a young American navigator to steer acanoeby starand ocean swell.

Canoe House Tales:The Poetry of Discovery 14Marjorie SinclairPolynesian poetry and Micronesian songs reveal the inner life ofa seafaring people.

Teacher's Guide 17Classroom projects and discussion make The Nav igators a useful tool for teachers.

Museum.s 18Museum exhibits for further exploration.

Bibliography 19An annotated list of useful books and articles.

Glossary 20Unfamiliar words are defined.

HawaIIan Islands

C OZIer:A Samtoaicsc sailins canoe skim«thmush lleaFI! seas. (COl/ rtesyStephen Tlunna«)

'E,e Pacific Ocean, is la~c.;er than all of tileearth's continentscombined. Tile islands in thisPast ocean arca weresettledby intrepidseafa rerswhobegan tileirl'Oyages ofexploratioll thousandsof years before the Pacific was "discovered" byEI/ropcans.

IEaster Island

Tuamotus

Huah ineI

Tahiti

Somoa

TO~Nluatoputapu

Sam Low, producer ofThe Navigators,is an anthropologist whose films focus onseafaring peoples around the world.

to my appropriate status, a prisoner ofmy own culture; a slave to gadgets,pilot books and charts; a "sailor" accus­tomed to a dry bunk even in the worststorm. After that night, my admirationfor Mau and for men like him whosailed across vast and empty seas wasunshakable. Sadly, I realized that Icould never enter Mau's world, I couldonly refine my appreciation for it.

I hope that the film we have madecontains some of the awe that we all feltin the presence of Mau Piailug, and aswe discovered the archaeological foot­steps left behind by ancient navigatorswho voyaged across the relentless Pa­cific thousands of years ago. In theannals of seafaring, their achievementis second to none.

IntroductioA storm-tossed night reveals thegenius ofMau Piailug.By Sam Low, Ph.D.

While filming The Navigatorswe journeyed with MauPiailug and his crew to thetiny coral island of West

Fayu. On the third day, I watched Mauas he intently studied the sky at dusk."We must leave right away,"he told me.Mau had discovered signs of badweather in the sky and predicted astorm would arrive that night andwould last for at least three days. If wedidn't leave immediately, we would bestranded on West Fayu.

Within minutes Mau had launchedhis 28-foot outrigger canoe, and I was'"'-~__.:"L _ .L._..............._ -..r>.tj6 ...........J..;..... ~ ~ ~ .... n_ t:..o _C,... e-. J.

aboard the expedition's 60-footschooner with my camera crew. Weheaded out through the narrowopening in the reef, intending to sail incompany on the 60-mile voyage toSatawal. As darkness fell, the windpicked up and the sky clouded over.Soon we could no longer see the canoein the pitch black of the stormy night.

The film crew sailed in comfortaboard the schooner. We navigated bycompass, chart and a unique satellitenavigational system. Somewhere in thegloom, Mau and his men enduredsheets of rain that blanketed the seaaround us and whipping winds thatgusted to 40 knots. The sea was a con­fused roil of waves as surface windsthrew new wave sets against the under­lying swells caused by distant tradewinds. Without a compass or even thestars to guide him, Mau must be steer­ing his canoe by these swells, yet Icould not understand how it would behumanly possible to do so.

I slept fitfully that night, aware thatthe schooner's engine was started twicewhen the wind died, to be shut downagain as the wind picked up, oftenblowing from a new direction. With thedawn we were only twelve miles from

M au Piailug'scanoe sails indeepwateroutsidethereefthatsurroundsSatawal .(Courtesy Stephen Thomas)

Satawal, having made good speedthrough the night.

The captain and I agreed Mau waslost. We would sail to Satawal and re­trace our course in a search pattern forhis canoe.

As Satawal rose slowly from the seadirectly ahead of us, we took turnsusing binoculars to scan the island. Atiny speck bobbed off the entrancethrough the reef. Could it be?

As we drew nearer, the canoe took onsufficient detail to identify it. Not onlyhad Mau unerringly found his waythrough that tempestuous night, hehad reached Satawal before us!

It was a humbling experience. Hav­ing studied Mau's techniques, I under­stood how it was possible to navigatewithout instruments, relying insteadon a world of natural signs. I eventhought with practice I, too, could learnto navigate as he did. That thought hadvanished with the storm. I was reduced

The Navigators 1

On remote tropical islands, scientists discoverclues to the oceanvoyages ofan ancient seafaring people.By Patrick V. Kirch, Ph .D.

The Polynesians:A Pacific Odyssey

cha rted waters, to find even the mostremo te islands of th e Pacific had al­rea dy been discovered and colonized .The peopl e of these islands had nowr itten lan gu age. They used no com­pass, cha rts or navigation al instru­ments. The ir conq ues t of the Pacificwas a mystifying feat.

The more astu te Euro pea n explorers ,like Captain James Coo k of th e BritishRoyal Nav y, quickly rea lized th at th enative peoples of such widely scatteredislands as Hawaii, Easter Island andNew Zealand were closely related .These islanders spoke mutually intelli­gible lan gu ages and shared many cul­tural traits. "How shall we acco unt forthis Nation spreading itself over such avast ocean?" Cook asked upon discov­ering th e Hawaiian islands in A.D.1778. In th e two cen tur ies follow ingCook's discovery of Hawaii, man ytheories have been prop osed to explainth e se ttleme nt of thi s vas t ocea n area .One th eory held th at th e Polynesianswere descendants of South AmericanIndian s who drifted into the Pacific onrafts; another proposed that the islan dswere settled from Asia , during a slowprocess of accide ntal di scovery bycanoes blown out to sea during violentstorms; and, for a tim e, th e most radi­cal theory was that Polynesia had beensettled by a seafar ing peopl e whosettled ' by ; se~aring' people' -wn osa iled from Southeast Asia on inten ­tional voyages of discovery. Thi s lasttheory would eventua lly win out, butonly after a long process of collabora­tive research by scientists in th e fieldsof anthropo logy, linguistics, ethno­botan y and archaeology.

One of th e firs t clues to the ori­gins of th e Polynesians wasfound by examining the cropsthey grew. Accord ing to eth­

nobotani sts, who study how humansocieties use and interact with the plantworld, all of the plants th at we now cul­tivate were do mesticated from speciesth at once grew wild . The process ofdomesticating wild plants led to varie­ties that yielded much greater harvests,but could only grow and reproducewith the aid of man .

The ancie n t Polynesians cultivated awide variety of plants such as taro,breadfruit, yams, and bananas. Ethno­botani sts have discovered that the wildancestors of all these Polynesian cropsare fou nd in the region of So utheastAsia and New Guinea. It was here thatthey were first dom esticated, to be car­ried throu ghout th e Pacific by adve n­turous seafarers. Similarly, th e th ree

zle th at has in trig ue d us formany years: Wh o were th e

Polyn esian s? Where hadth ey come fro m? How had

they settled such a vas t areaof the Pacific?

Polyn esia (the term liter-ally means "ma ny

islands") forms a1sianalS" n~Fm~"'atrian gle with Ha-

waii, Easter Islandand New Zealandat the apices, con-

taining an areamore th an twice

th e size of th e contine n tal UnitedStates . Today, we can travel by jet fromLondo n to Hawaii in less th an a day.Centuries ago, th e great Europeannavigators who "discovered" the Pacificspe nt months, even years at sea tomake the same journey. Imagine theirsurprise, after slowly tacking th eir wayacross thou sands of miles of un-

L apita potsherd with stylized human fa ce,Main Reef Islands, dating to circa 1100 B.C.(Above) Hawaiian man in cape and helmet,engraving by fohn Webber. (Courtesy BishopMuseum)

The tropical sunbeat down onth e sandy plainwhere I worked

with my Tongan ass is­tants to clear fau trees andtan gled underbrush fro mthe site of an ancie nt Poly­nesian village . From wherenes ia~ village. Fr~m "wh~reI stood, on a gentle rise, Ilooked out at the _ _"" c'~

lagoon surroundingthe Tongan islandof Niuatop utapu .The deep azurewaters of the lagoon lapped at a glisten­ing white beach. Geo logists have deter­mine d th at Niua topu tapu is rising ­tectonic plates the size of con tine n tsbeneath the PacificOcean are thrustin gthe island slowly and inexorably up­war d . If this is true, I reasone d that theancient beach and its accompanyingsettlements would now be found abovethe mod ern beac h, somewhere on th isgen tle san dy slop e.

"Sio mai, Petu," One of my ass istantshad spo tted some thing.

As we pulled away th e tan gledbru sh , I saw it too - a sma ll, see minglyins ignificant potsh erd . On th e surfaceof th e sherd were complex geo me tricaldesigns, which th e ancien t potter hadpressed into the clay while it was stilldamp. The design s were familiar.Other archaeologists had found similarpottery througho ut th e sou thwesternPacific. Called Lapita, its discovery hereon this remote Polynesian island wouldhelp archaeologis ts understand a puz-

2 The Navigators

decade following World War II whenpioneering archaeologists like KennethEmory of the Bishop Museum, andEdward Gifford of California put spadeto earth in Pacific island sites and foundlarge arrays of prehistoric stone, bone,and shell tools and ornaments, as wellas pottery sherds.

In 1950, a revolutionary scientifictechnique was developed that pro­vided a way to date archaeological ma­terials such as those from Polynesia.Called radiocarbon (or carbon 14) dat­ing, this technique uses the steady rateof decay of radioactive carbon atoms asa "natural clock." Radioactive carbonexists naturally in our atmosphere andis taken into plants during photosyn­thesis. Plants, in turn, are eaten by ani­mals and so carbon 14 atoms are takeninto their bodies as well. While they arealive, the amount of radioactive carbon

While ethnobotanists and linguistscan show that the ancestral Polynesiansoriginated in the west, they cannot tellus exactly when these seafarers pointedtheir canoes toward the rising sun, orwhat routes they followed to settle themost remote islands of the eastern Paci­fic. Answers to these questions are pro­vided by archaeology, the scientificexcavation of the material remains(such as pottery and stone tools) leftbehind by the settlers of the Pacific.

Before 1950, most scholars assumedthat the Polynesians and other Pacificislanders had migrated into the Pacificrelatively recently, perhaps only a fewhundred years before the arrival of thefirst Europeans. They further assumedthat archaeological excavations wouldyield few material remains from theprehistoric period . These assumptionswere shown to be utterly false in the

(Above) A rtistswhotraveled with thefirstEuropean explorers provideus with scenesof daily lifeinancient Polynesian villages. This is aviewof KauaibyJohn Webberwhovoyagedwith Captain JamesCook during the years 1776to 1779. (Courtesy Bishop Museum)(Below) Painstaking care in theexcavation ofancient Polynesianvillages, likethisoneontheTahitianisland of Huahine, reveals the richcomplexity ofPolynesianculture. (Courtesy BishopMuseum)

.y. ,'r•

animals kept by the Polynesians-pigs,dogs, and fowl-were also domesti­cated in Asia and were unknown in theAmericas until after the time of Colum­bus. Thus, even before systematicarchaeological excavations, the evi­dence provided by domesticated plantsand animals indicated that the Polyne­sians migrated from the west .

Linguistic research supports this pic­ture . A first step in linguistic analysis isthe comparison of words. CaptainJames Cook noted that all thePolynesian languages, such as Tahitian,Hawaiian and Samoan, shared similarwords and so he guessed that all theselanguages were related . Modern lin­guistic studies now also show thatPolynesian languages share similaritieswith hundreds of languages through­out the western Pacific and islandSoutheast Asia. One such language isMalay, spoken in many areas of islandSoutheast Asia . The Malay word for"coconut," a staple crop in both Malay­sia and Polynesia, is Niur . In Hawaiianthe word is Niu. The Malay word for"eye," maia, compares with the Hawai­ian equivalent, maka; and the word for"five," is lima in both languages. Theselanguages share hundreds of similarwords because both Hawaiian andMalay are descended from an ancienttongue called Proto-Austronesian . Proto-tongue called Proto-Austronesian. Proto­Austronesian is an extinct language oncespoken somewhere in the area of Indo­nesia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Asthe ancestors of the Polynesians spreadout from this homeland, linguistsargue, their language underwent slowand regular changes, gradually becom­ing the family of languages we now callPolynesian . The languages spoken bythe people who remained in the Proto­Austronesian homeland diversified andgradually evolved into the manylanguages spoken throughout islandSoutheast Asia today.

By studying the similarities and dif­ferences in Pacific languages, a familytree can be constructed. This treeshows that the ancestors of the peoplenow speaking Tahitian and Hawaiianbranched off from each other relativelyrecently; while the ancestors of bothTahitian and Hawaiian speakersbranched off from Proto-Austronesianspeakers in the very distant past, per­haps six thousand years ago. Thus lin­guists are able to demonstrate not onlythat the homeland of the ancestralPolynesians was in Southeast Asia, butalso that the direction of their Pacificmigration was from west to east.

A Pacific Odyssey 3

(Above) Tva planks from anancientPolynesian canoe havebeendiscoveredbtJ archaeologistYosihikoSinoto 011 the Tahitian islandof Huahine.(Below) Dr. Yosihiko Sinoto (right)andauthorDr. PatrickKirch(left)examineartifacts from Huahine.Analysisofthese finds allmvs Sinotototracethevoyaging routesofearly Polynesian seafarers. (Photos:courtesy BishopMuseum)

14 in plants and animals is in equilib­rium with that in the atmosphere.When they die , however, no new car­bon 14 is taken in and th ese atomsbegin to decay, to lose their radioac­tivity. The rate of decay is now known,so organic materials can be dated bymeasuring the amount of radioactivecarbon that remains in them. One ofthe most common artifacts used insuch dating is wood charcoal fromancient hearths.

Radiocarb on da tes showed th atTonga had been settled by 1250 B.C.,thousan ds of years earlier than hadbeen supposed. With this discovery,scien tists realized that the Polynesianislands were settled during a process

4 The Navigators

that required many thousands of yearsto complete, and that the prehistory ofPolynesia was a rich and complex sub­ject, worthy of intensive study. Archae­ological surveys and excavations havenow been conducted throughout Poly­nesia, as well as on Melanesian andMicronesian islands fur ther west . As aresult, the story of the peopling of thePacific islands is rapidly emerging.

Perhaps the single most impor­tant archaeological clue to th eactual voyaging routes of thefirst Pacific settlers is a style of

pottery called Lapita . This reddishearthenware pottery is dis tinguishedby a rich embroidery of designs ma de

by pressing woo de n tools into th e claywhile it was still damp. The artistic styleof these designs is so distinctive th atarchaeologists are able to say that Lapitapottery was ma de by peopl e whoshared a commo n culture- the "Lapitapeopl e." Lapita pottery has now beendiscovered in dozen s of archaeologicalsites from New Guinea and th e Bis­mark archipelago in th e wes t, th rou ghth e Solomo ns, New Hebrides and onto th e islands of Fiji, Samoa, andTonga, 2800 miles to th e east. Artifactsfrom archaeologica l excavations onthese islands (including finds of adzes,fishhooks, orname nts, coral files, andLapita pottery) document th e rapidmigratio n of this ea rly seafaringpeople, th e ancestors of th e mode rnPolynesians, the eastern Melan esians,and ma ny of th e Micronesian peopl es.

In 1976, I was able to fill in an impor­tant p iece of the Lapita puzzle th roughmy excavations on the Tongan island ofNiuatoputapu . As the leader of aBisho p Muse um archaeological expe di­tion, I had gone there to excavate th ese ttleme nts of the firs t peopl e to dis­cover and colonize Niuatoputapu, peo­ple who had brought Lapita potterywith th em aboard th eir voyagingcanoes. We soon discovered th at th eisland was rich in the ves tiges of an-~j~J) LU!t1,i.t3 .~m~g~s:. ~xs~:~?_~t.!g it.! !tt~cien t Lapita villages. Excavating in th eearl iest sites, we found pottery dec­orated with intri cate geome tric patternsarranged to form ornate and beautifuldesigns. Several years later, when I wasexcavating an early settleme nt on th eisland of Tikopia , more th an 600 milesto the wes t of Niuatoputapu, I foundmore of this decorated Lapita pottery.The designs were virtua lly identical,testifying to th e common cultural roo tsof th e early Pacific peoples .

Other archaeolog ical clues alsoaffirm th at th e Lapita peopl e we reexpert seafarers. Flake tools mad e ofobs idia n and chert are frequen tlyfound in Lapitasites . By using spectro­graphic ana lysis, archaeologists havebeen able to detect minu te differen cesin the chemical make-up of these m a­terials - a "che mical fingerprin t." Th isresearch shows that some of th e obsid­ian was quarried in Talasea, NewBritain (an islan d jus t north of NewGuinea) and carried by canoe to th eReef and Santa Cruz Islands, 1200miles away. This inter- island trad eflourishe d for more th an six centuries,a testament to th e navigational skills ofthe ancient "Lapita people."

The makers of Lapitapottery reache d

B readfrUit is a clue to Polunesian origins.

Wh at mo tive s lay behindthese grea t feats of voyagingan d discovery? Perhaps thep ress ure of growing popu­

lation s on sma ll islands, an d subse­quen t wars for scarce land and food,drove weaker faction s off in search ofunoccupied lands. Whil e some islandsmay have been settled in this manner, itis unl ikely th at "population pressure"can explain th e who le pic ture of Poly­nesian dispersal . Perhaps th e youngersons of ch iefs se t ou t to discover landswhe re they could be chiefs themselvesand establish th eir ow n lines as domi­nant . Or, could it simply have been thatthe ances tral Polynesians were imbuedwith a sort of "wanderlus t," a cultur­aJly-ing raine d desire to search ever

voyages. Halawa was an ideal place toplan t crops, harvest the deep bay forfish and mollu scs, and establis h a newcommuni ty. From the dark, charcoal­staine d layer th at marks the remains oftheir village, we recovered ar tifacts thatwere unlike those see n by Cook whe nhe discovered Hawaii centur ies later.These early adzes, fishhooks, andorna me nts are closer in style to th osefound in early Marquesan sites provid­ing evide nce tha t th e first Hawaiian scarne from th e Marquesas, thou sandsof miles to the sou th . Other earlyH awaiian sites, on Oahu and at SouthPoint on Hawaii, provid e similar evi­den ce. Some centuries after th e firstse t tle me n t of Hawaii from theMarquesas, later voyagers arrived fromthe Society Islands, bringing new idea sand new typ es of ar tifacts.

New Zealand was se ttled from theSociety Islands by abo ut 900 A.D . Be­fore th e close of the first milleni umafter Christ, Polynesian navigators hadman aged th e incredible feat of dis­cover ing and se ttling the mo st remoteislands on earth .

. -, • Hawaiian Islands.•:". 500 A.D.

Line Islands' •

lon g up-wind voyage from wes ternPolynesia (perha ps Samoa) to discoverthe Marquesas Islands. Not long after,the Society Islands (including thefam ous isle of Tahiti) were settled . Onth e verda nt island of Huahine, abou tHm w:i} e.~NNJ1dWtlsbPfITrch iti lJ,'lc¥uffih100 miles northwest of Tah iti, my col­leagu e Yosihiko Sinoto of the BishopMu seum has mad e star tling archaeo­logical discoveries wh ich bring th esevoyages to life. In 1981, Sino to exca­vated two planks, a steering paddle,and a mast from a Polyn esian voyagingcano e. These wooden ar tifacts weremiraculou sly preserved by a tidal wavewhich inundated the village more than1100years ago, burying th em in a pro­tective layer of mud . From the len gth ofth e paddle, Sino to estimates th at thecanoe it belonged to must have been 80feet lon g. Here at last was th e tangibleevide nce that allows us to reco ns tructthe kinds of canoes that made the long­est voyages of all- to New Zealand,Easter Island, and Hawaii .

Easter Island and the HawaiianIslands were probably se ttled by voy­agers from th e Marquesas as early asthe fourth century A.D. In th e Ha lawavalley, on the eas tern end of Moloka i, Iexcavated an early Hawaiian site duringth e summers of 1969 and 1970. In th isfertile valley, a perman ent strea m andrich alluvial so ils provided ideal con­dition s for taro irrigation . Here, earlyseafare rs found the kind of environ­ment th ey were see king on their long

Bismarks~ 2000

......Be.

..~. SamoaM t: l-41V • New Hebrides 1000 Be ' · Marquesas Islands

es1-4 ..I, 1600 Be , . "j" 300 A.D., ~. 4"<' 'V . Huahme" • FIJI : ' 0 .. ..: ~ T~h l \ 1

~Tonga o Society Islands

12OOB.e. " 6ooAD.Nl uatoput8.pU

\ Easter Island -.., 400 A.D.

-.JIt New Zealand~ BOD A.D.

•

, '. Mariana Islands

J f~ -;;:z:-""""',:'c'; R 0 •Island S.E. Asia. M N E S 1-4 • Marshall Islands4000 ·2000 B C-. " •Caroline • '

~y",J Sata':al . ': ', .Is~ands ••••

'111II"J • ": GilberteII...-.'" -,', .!slands~ .. y ••

'Ii_.."

Niuatoputapu and other Tongan is­lands by about 1250B.C., and probablycolonized the Samoan islands no t longafter. These were th e first Polyn esianislands to be settled. Althou gh th earchaeological picture for Micronesia ismtnliebl'O'g}lcfi1~Rtultf'RR lvnctmrtY:,}d,\§not yet weJl understood, pottery h asbeen found in early sites on Ponapeand Truk , and more finds are expected.It would appea r that these islands werealso settled by descendants of the Lapitapeople, perhap s beginning in th e firstmillenium B.C. Thus the people of cen­tral and eas tern Micronesia, includingthose of Satawal (the horne of MauPiailug) prob ably share a commo nancestry with th e Polyn esian s.

Once th e Lapita peopl e had settledTonga and Samoa, a number of gradualcha nges in language and cultu re overthe next several hundred years resultedin the development of a uniquely Poly­nesian culture. One of th e most impor­tant changes was the gradual loss of thepotter's art, for reasons that we can asyet onl y guess at . It may also be that inthe widely scattered islands of Tongaand Samoa, the first true Polyn esian ssha rpe ne d th eir voyag ing and naviga­tional skills, to th e point where theywould be able to discover and settlenearl y every spot of land in the remoteeas tern Pacific.

Possibly as early as 200 B.C. , but cer­tainly no later than 300 A.D., at leastone voyaging canoe lad en with cropplan ts and domestic animals made the

I ll'Pacific wassettled by 0 111'of the utost extensite ntigrations in luunanliistoru. Scientistsare 1l0 W

able to trace these darillg oceall l'oyagesand date the discol'ery of the Pacific's inaior islalids.(Col/rtesy Bishop Musel/III )

A Pacific Odyssey 5

B readfruit is a clue to Polynesianorigins.

What motives lay behindthese great feats of voyagingand discovery? Perhaps thepressure of growing popu­

lations on small islands, and subse­quent wars for scarce land and food,drove weaker factions off in search ofun occupied lands. While some islandsmay have been settled in this ma nner, itis unlikely that "population pressure"can exp lain the whole picture of Poly­nesian dispersal. Perhaps the youngersons of chiefs set out to discover landswhere they could be chiefs themselvesand establish their own lines as domi­nant. Or, could it simply have been thatthe ancestral Polynesians were imbuedwith a sort of "wanderlus t," a cu ltur­ally-ing rained desire to search ever

voyages. Halawa was an ideal place topla nt crops, harvest the deep bay forfish and molluscs, and establish a newcommunity. From the dark, charcoal­stained layer that marks the remains oftheir village, we recovered artifacts thatwere unlike those seen by Cook whenhe discovered Hawaii cen turies later.These early adzes, fishhooks, andor na me nts are closer in style to thosefound in early Marquesan sites provid­ing evidence that the first Hawaiianscame from the Marquesas, thousandsof miles to the south . Other earlyHawaiian sites, on Oahu and at SouthPoint on Hawaii, provide similar evi­dence. Some centuries after the firstset tlement of Hawaii from theMarquesas, later voyagers arrived fromthe Society Islands, bringing new ideasand new types of artifacts.

New Zealand was settled from theSocie ty Islands by about 900 A.D. Be­fore the close of the first milleniumafter Christ, Polynesian navigators hadmanaged the incredible feat of dis­covering and settling the most remoteislands on earth.

• o . • Hawaiian Islands. ·:". 500 A.D.

long up-wind voyage from wes ternPolynesia (perhaps Samoa) to discoverth e Marquesas Islands. Not long after,th e Socie ty Islands (incl uding th efamo us isle of Tahiti) were se ttled. O nthe verda n t island of Huahine, abo u tmQ wj}e/;u'i\.()rJhWtls6 PfITflch iti1J;1.¥umh100 miles northwest of Tahiti, my col­leagu e Yosihiko Sinoto of the BishopMuseum has made star tling archaeo­logical discoveries which bring thesevoyages to life. In 1981, Sino to exca­vated two plan ks, a steering pa ddle,and a mast from a Polynesian voyagingcanoe. These woo de n artifacts wererrtiraculously preserved by a tidal wavewhich inunda ted the village more than1100 years ago, burying th em in a pro­tective layer of mud. From the length ofthe p addle, Sinoto estimates that thecanoe it belonged to must have been 80feet long. Here at las t was the tan gibleevide nce that allows us to reconstructthe kinds of canoes that made the long­est voyages of all- to New Zealand,Easter Island, an d Hawaii.

Easter Island and the HawaiianIslands were prob ably settled by voy­agers from the Marquesas as early asthe fourth century A.D. In the Ha lawavalley, on th e eas tern end of Molokai , Iexcavated an ear ly Hawaiian site duringth e summers of 1969 and 1970. In th isfer tile valley, a perman ent stream andrich alluvial soils provided ideal con­ditions for taro irr igation . Here, earlyseafarers found the kind of environ­ment they were seeking on their long

Blsmarks~ 2000

'.J ..BC.....~ ~ Samoo

E l A • New Hebrides 1000 B C

N ES t "! ..I, 1600BC , •• ;_-----""j.,~. 4·"" "j V

" . FIJI"' · " "• 0 .Tonga l'l ~SoCleIY Islands

1200 B.C "' _ . 600 A.D . •Nluatoputapu ~~ •

,, ~ Easte r Island •..,~ 400 A.D.

...JIt New Zealand.,. 800 A.D.

, :. Mariana Islands

J t~ -p--""""' ,:'c'; R a •Island S.E . Asia.... M N E S I A • Marsha ll Islands4000 -2000 B C -... " Caroline ...

~.," ~ Sala';a l•.: ". . Is~a nds •••.

.J , I Gilbert........ A •....)slandS

"'''y..'Ii. ,...

Niuatoputapu and other Tongan is­lands by about 1250B.C., and probablycolonized the Samoan islands not longafter. These were the first Polynesianislands to be settled . Although thearchaeological picture for Micronesia is1i'R:'n~~bl'<Yg}ta'J'}3R1u'ttmR IvnettJIrtY~h1.§not yet well understood, pottery hasbeen found in earl y sites on Ponap eand Truk, and more find s are expected.It would appear that these islands werealso settled by descendants of the Lapitapeople, perhaps beginning in the firstmillenium B.c. Thus the people of cen­tral and eastern Micronesia , includingthose of Satawal (the home of MauPiailug) probably share a commo nancestry with the Polyn esian s.

Once th e Lapita peopl e had settledTonga and Samoa, a number of gradualcha nges in lan gu age and culture overthe next several hundred years resultedin th e development of a uniquely Poly­nesian culture. One of the most impor­tant changes was the gradual loss of thepotter's art , for reasons th at we can asyet on ly guess at . It may also be th at inthe wide ly sca ttere d islands of Tongaand Samoa, the first true Polynes ianssharpene d their voyag ing and naviga­tion al skills, to th e point where th eywould be able to discover and settlenearly every spot of land in th e remoteeas tern Pacific.

Possibly as early as 200 B.C. , but cer­tainly no later th an 300 A.D., at leastone voyag ing canoe laden with cropplants and domestic animals made the

I ll:Paciiic wassettled byolleof the 1II0Stextellsiw lIIigratiolls ill liuntan history. Scientistsare1l0W

able to trace these darillgocealll'oyages and date the discol'ery of the Pacific's ntaior islands,(Courtesy Bishop Mllselllll )

A Pacific Odyssey 5

\

Tl

The Polynesian canoe was a refined voyaging craft developed through thousandsof years of practical experience. The first Europeans to encounter these canoes wereamazed by their speed and their ability to carry large crews and heavy cargoes.Cook estima ted th at a Tongan do ub le canoe cou ld make abo ut seven knots "close­hauled ; ' or heading almost directly into the wind. He described one group of largedouble canoes as so fast to windward that they "... sailed round us apparently withthe same ease as if we had been at anchor."

Cook's ships were primarily rigged with square sails , designed to be most effi­cient with a steady wind from astern which fills the sails and pushes the ship on herway. Mo dern sails work on an en tirely different principle. They are designed likeairfoils so the wind flowing over them causes a partial vacuum along the leewardside of the sai l which actually pulls the boa t forward. This kind of airfoi l designallows a vessel to sail more directly into the wind than a vessel equipped withsquare sails. It was the "modern" design of Polynesian sail s that allowed ancientcanoes to voyage against the winds from Southeast Asia.

Large Polynesian canoes, often more than 100feet long, were not simple "d ug­ou ts;' but small ships made from planks. The keel was fashioned from logs hol­lowed out and joined together. Lacking metal to fasten the planks of th eir craft, theancien t Polynesians (and the Micronesians today) lash ed them together withcoconut-fiber rope (sennit). Coconut fiber and breadfruit sap were placed betweenthe planks, as caulking, to keep the water out. By fastening two hulls together withstout cross pieces, a large deck could be built over the hulls to carry cargo and crew.

Without refrigeration or vacuum-packed tins, the Polynesians developed ingen­Without refrigeration or vacuum-packed tins, the Polynesians developed ingen­

ious techniques to preserve food for long voyages under the hot tropical sun .Bread fru it, buried in earthen pits sheathed with leaves, went through a controlledprocess of fermentation which preserved it. Dried and salted fish would las t formonths, an d fresh fish was caught regularly. Fresh coconuts contained water, andthe coconut's meat provided protein. Water was also carried in gourds or stopperedbamboo containers. Cooked and dried yams and sweet potatoes were wrapped inpandanus leaves and stored in gourds. Stalks of sugar cane, sealed at each end withbread fru it gum, would las t for even the longest voyage. Pigs, dogs and chickenswere prob ably carried in cages. Those not used as breeding stock would have pro­vided a welcome dietary supplement.

6 The Navigators

eas twards, in the anticipa tion that newislands wo uld always rise above th ehorizon? One thing is cer tain, the Poly­nesian s did not just drift to th eir islandhomes. They were skilled seafarers andnavigators who had th e courage to se tfor th on purposeful voyages of dis­covery and coloniza tion.

Cur ious ly, once most of th e distantislands had been discovered and per­man ently se ttled, the long-di stan cevoyages ceased. In some region s, suchas Ton ga, large vessels continue d to beused to carry peopl e and cargo backand for th between Fiji, Ton ga, andSamoa. In th e remo ter islands, how­ever, voyag ing and navigation under­we nt a declin e. The re is no evide nce,for example, th at voyages betweenH awaii and th e Society Islands per­sisted after abou t 1300A.D. By the timeCoo k arrived, Hawaiian s were nolonger build ing or using large ocea n­going canoes. Instead, th eir vesselswere built for fishing and sho rter travelbetween the inter-visible islands. Hadthe news th at all of th e previouslyemp ty islands h ad been found an doccupied been communicated back toth e more wester ly islands?

Once the Polynesian islanders wereexposed to Euro pean metho ds of shipcons truction and navigation, th eyquickly lost traditional skills. Tod ay, notquickly lost tradition al skills. Today, nota single Polyn esian navigator practicesth e ancie nt methods. Only the fewnavigators of Micro nesia, who sharedistant roo ts wi th th e Polyn esian s,carry on traditi onal canoe-building andvoyag ing skills . The methods used byMau Piailug and other Micronesiannavigators prob ably differ in detailfrom those once used by th e Polyn e­sia ns, but th ey are basically similar,relying on the natural patterns of windan d wave, and the observation of starpaths.

There is now a cultural revival amo ngyounger Polynesians, a heightenedawa reness and growing interest in th egrea t feats and kn owledge of their long­dep arted ancestors . The voyage ofHokule'a mad e the findings of archaeol­ogists come alive wi th a new intensity.The Polynesian peopl es have a right tobe proud of their seafaring ancestors,for th e story of th e settleme nt of Poly­nesia surely ranks amo ng the greathuman sagas of all time.

Dr. Patrick Kirch is a fo remost archaeol­ogist and head of the Bernice P BishopMuseum's archaeology division. He hasex­cavated on many Pacific Islands.

Ts.: PahiTheTahitian Pahiwasalargedoublecanoe rigged withcrab-claw sails similarto tllOseof Hawaii. Captain James Cook measured twolargePattialldfoundthemtobe 76 feet long. "Theyliauehigh C!I rvedstems,"lie reported, "theheadalsocUl1Jes alittle, alld both are ornamenteduuth theimage ofa mallcarvedill wood . . . TlIey lIIanagethemverydexteriousiuand1believe performlonganddistant voyages in them . . ."

L ngan TongiakiThis double canoeof TOllga was reported byearlyexplorers toaverage 70feci illlength . 1111616 the Dutch captain, William Schouten,recorded IIis impressionsofaTOIlgiaki, ':.. therigofthesevessels issoexcellent and they gosowell undersail that thereare fe7.!! ships inHolland that could ouerhaul then:"

WaKauluaofHawaiiA doublehulledcanoe designedprimarily forsailingshort distances between Hawaii's islands, the Wa 'aKaulua is probably a specialized adaptation fromearlierand more pouxriul iong distance voyagingcanoes. By thetimeCaptain CookdiscoveredHawaii- - ~ " , J ' f.1 - - J 'V u ·

canoes. By thetimeCaptain Cookdiscovered Hawaiiill1778, longdistance voyagingbetweellHawaiiandother Polynesian islands had ceased . According tomeasurements made byCook, acanoe likethiswouldbeabou t 70feet ill length with a beam of 12 feet.

Illustrations, Richard Berry

A Pacific Odyssey 7

Navigating without compass, sextant orchart, Mau Piailugfinds his way by the teachings ofhis ancestors.By Stephen Thomas

Wmd, Wave, and Stars:A Sea of Natural Signs

Piailug

It was late, very late, but still th elanternlight flickered over th ewhite cora l stones in the cour t­yard in front of th e th atched

house. Piailug and I had just fallen intosilence after having talked for manyhours. I watche d the soft light flow overhis smoo th, brown face before it flowedpast, to be lost in the moonless tropicalnigh t. Uliul, Orion's Belt, had jus t risenand was poised above Piailug's sho ul­der. As it flickered in th e gus ts of th e

8 The Na vigators

M au Piailug fashions a model canoe. (Cour­tesy Stephen Thomas)

the winter trade w inds the cons tella­tion see me d sudde nly to belong not toEurope and to my race, but to one farolder, one whose lifeblood from its ear­liest beginnings was entwine d with thesea . This was my firs t night on th eisland of Satawal. I was with MauPiailug, my teacher, one of th e last ofthe fully initi ated navigators, th e Palu.Piailug still navigates without cha rts orinstruments using only a world full of

natural signs - stars, waves, birds - toguide his canoe. I had come as a West­ern navigator and skippe r, havin gsailed thousands of sea miles in mod­ern yach ts, to learn his, a far older, art.

Six th ousand years ago, a seafaringpeople left their homeland in islandSoutheast Asia to ven ture into the Pa­cific. They moved down the chain ofMelanesian islands to Samoa andTonga, and north into Micronesia . Atabout the time of Christ , th ey pushedeastward to the Marquesas and thenoutward to the uttermost reach es of thePacific- Hawaii , Easter Island and NewZealand.

In Polynesia , these navigators aregone, swept aside by th e rapid adop­tion of Western cultur e. But on th e tinycoral atolls of Micronesia th e skills ofnavigating withou t instruments stilllive on. Yet even here, in this Pacific wil­derness, these ancient skills are threat­ened. The inter-island steamer th atbrought me to Satawal also carriestinned food s and batteries for tran sistorradios. Many young Micronesiansleave th eir islands to seek educationand jobs on Westernized islands suchas Yap, Ponape, or Guam. Few stay be­hind to learn th e ways of their fathers.Piailug and his fellow Palu fear they willbe the last of the navigators.

A few days after _n:y arrival. onA few days after my arrival on

Satawal, I asked Mau to be my teacher.He questioned me carefully. Why did Iwant to learn these techniques? H owwould I use thi s knowledge? What didI know about currents? About their in­fluence on waves? Wh at abo ut swe llsand drift ? How much time did I have tolearn th e skills he ha s spen t fifty yearsperfecting?

I must have answered satisfactorily,for he announced th at I would be hisstude nt. I wo uld live in his house andbecome part of his family. Navigationalknowledge is an essential skill in Mau 'sisland universe - a secre t usuallyp assed from one famil y member toano ther. I was honored by his accept­anc e of me as a pupil .

There are three things that any sys­tem of navigation must accomplish : away to determine th e dir ection to anobjective; a way to maintain the courseat sea; and a way to determine dis­placement from the intended coursecaused by winds and currents.

The Star Compass

To determine direction , the West­ern navigator reads a compass.The Palu reads the stars. At th eage of five, Mau began learning

the stars from his grandfather in a cere­mony called merek keiki or "unfoldingthe mat ." Mau 's gra ndfa ther placedthirty-two lumps of cora l on a wove npandanus mat to rep resent the risingand setting posit ions of th e principa lnavigation al stars . Unlike th e sun,moon, and the planets, the stars alwaysrise and set in th e same place, as lon gas you do not drastically cha nge yourlatitude. Mailap (or Altair), for example,always rises just north of eas t and setsjust north of wes t. It is th e cardina ldirection in th e Micronesian starcompass. North is marked out byFeusemagut (Polaris), "the star th at doesnot move;" northeast and northwestare defin ed by the rising and settingpositions of Mun (Vega); and sou theastand sou thwest are shown by the risingand setting of Tumur (Antares). South­erly headings are shown by the South­ern Cro ss in five positions-rising, 45degrees up, upright, 45 degrees settingand setting. Altogether, fifteen stars orcons tellations are used to define the 32points of the Micronesian star com­pass. Instead of sailing eas t or west, thePalu sails a star course called faan tanMailap (under the rising Mailap) or faa 11

tupul Mailap(under the setting Mailap) .Becau se th e stars rise four minutes

earlier each evening, the principal navi-

gational stars are no t always in the opti­mum position for guiding a canoe. Ifthe "regular" star for h is star course istoo far above or below the horizon toaccurately steer by, the Palu uses one ofma ny substitu te stars. Now, after 45years of study, Mau has memorized theentire nighttim e sky. On a cloudynight, he needs only to see a small por­tion of the sky to orient himself and sethis course.

Settinga Course: Wofanu

To determine his course to anydestination, the Western navi­gator consults a chart. The Paluhas no charts, so he must mem­

orize the star courses between impor­tant islands. Star courses are tau ght inth e canoe house in a lesson called Wo­fanu . Seated in a circle around the navi­gator, young men recite the star coursesto and from every island in their world .Wofanu is the navigator's chartcase. Themore Wofanu a navigator knows, th egreater his voyaging range . An averagenavigator will know Wofanu for thoseneighboring islands freq ue n tly visitedon fishing expeditions. But a greatnavigator will know Wofanu for all theislan ds from Yapin the wes t to Kusai inthe east and Guam or Saipan in thenorth - know his way aro und, in other

words, a sea area as large as WesternEurope! This is only a small portion ofthe immense body of da ta memorizedby a navigator- knowledge th at earnshim the highest status that a man canachieve by his own effor ts - that is,without bei ng born in to a chiefly clan."My grandfather spoke of navigation,"Mau explained. "If you learn it you willhave a name. You will eat the naviga­tor's food, and at sea you will havemore power than a chief."

The Swells

Once an ap prentice Palu hasmastere d th e star compassand basic WOfanu, he beginsto learn Kapesani Serak or th e

"Talk of Sailing," a body of practicalknowledge he must assimilate if he is tobe a navigator. By day, or on cloudynights, the Palu canno t use the stars toset h is course so he steers by othersigns. Micro nes ians are kee n observersof na ture, and have developed the abil­ity to distinguish underlying swe lls

A uthor Stephen Thomas andotherstudentsof navigation are taught the Micronesian "starcompass" byMauPiailug. Lumpsofcoral, spreadout on a woven mat, represent the rising andsetting points of stars.

A Sea of N atural Signs 9

S tar compass

As the earth turns, thestarsappearto rise ill theeast and set ill the west. At risillg, Altair (Mai lap)deiineseast andat seu ing th is stardejines west. Vega (M u l) lila rks ncrtheast and northtoest, Antares(Tumur), rises ill thesoutheast andsets ill thesouthwest. Polaris (Fuese magut) - thestarthat neoer1Il0ves - shows north , while the South ern Cross (Poop) ill its upright positiolllllarks south . TheMicrollesial1 "star compass" contains 32 pointsofdirection, more than call be shoun, here.

. . . ..... V' .. ... ... . ~ • • • _ • •• • - - "- r " - -

r:ImaginanJ lines join a starand a distant "referenceisland" to divide a voyage illto segments or etak .Thisconceptual modelallowsa Satawalesenavigatorto plot theprogressofhis canoeuiithout achart.

10 The Navigators

fro m conflicting surface waves. Theseswells, gene rated by distant winds,keep a cons tant direction as they marchacross th e sea . To steer by th em, th enavigator maintain s a cons tan t anglebe tween his canoe and the approach­ing swe ll.

Mau taught me to read swells fromeight directions, calling them out to mefrom his traditi onal position on the out­rigge r platform. Mau is so attune d tothese swells that he can feel the motionthey impart to his canoe and steer astraigh t course withou t even looking atth em.

The Currentsand Winds

One of the most difficult p rob­lems facing a navigator ismeasuring displacement fromhis intended course as th e

voyage proceeds. To do thi s, th e Palumust understand the curre n ts he w illsail th rough and h ow much th ey willforce his canoe off course. Curren ts areswift in Micron esia and failure to learnthem is a primary reason navigators getlost . Whe n leaving sigh t of land, th eMicronesian navigator will steer astea dy course by swell or star and sightback to see if th e island h as "moved ."The amo unt and direction th at it hasmoved allows him to estima te th e cur­!_~~t'~ }'2!~_e and direction and ~dj ~st

ren t's force and direction and adjus tth e course he will stee r accordingly."The Talk of Sailing" has tau ght h im acompe nsation formula for every cur­rent he will enco unter.

Once out of sigh t of land it is verydifficult to determine shif ts in current,but some navigators are able to rea dth em by th e sha pe and size of th ewaves. Once, on a voyage with Piailug'sbrother, Urupa, we cha nged coursewhe n the swells increased in size asUrupa knew we were getting pus hed toleeward of " the straight roa d" to ourdestination.

Etak

Once he has se t his course, thenavigator must measure hisprogress along it. The West­ern navigator uses a chart to

model th e motion of h is vessel inrelation to stationary lan d. He drawshis compass course on th e cha rt, andkn owing his speed, he can place him­self at a point along th at line. On longpa ssages, he can check th is "deadrecko ning" position with sextant sightsor by electro nic insturments. But theMicronesian uses a very differen t con­cep tua l model. Witho ut charts to plot

(Above) L enagers prepare a smallcanoe fora sail around Satawal.(Below) A voyaging canoeawaits finishing touches inaSatawal canoe house. (Photo: COllrtesy StephenThomas)

his course, the Palu employs a me ntalplotting system called etak. As the voy­age progresses, he pictures his canoe asstaying in one place while th e islandsmove around him. He uses an island orreef off to one side of his course as a"reference island" and calculates itsmovement under different stars,altho ugh he may never actually see theisland during his voyage.

Imaginary lines or yaw radia ting outfrom th e canoe to th e reference islandand the stars beyond are see n to dividethe voyage into segments or etak. It is byvisualizing the reference island movingunder a success ion of stars that thenavigator can mentally place himselfalong his course (see figure page 10) .

The first and last seg me nts or etak ofa voyage are the "etak of sigh ting" andthe "etak of birds." The distance of the"etak of sigh ting" dep ends on theheight of th e island of dep arture. The"etak of birds" is measured by seabirds,mo stly noddies and terns, that fish byday and fly directly home at dusk . Thesight of a seabird making for hom emean s an island is about twenty milesaway and provid es a certain course tolandfall.

Pookoof

Micronesian navigators believeth at certain sea creatures - athat certain seaUcreat~r~~ ., ~spec ies of flatfish , a pair ofseabirds, a sha rk w ith

spe cial markings, a pod of killerwhales, to nam e a few- reside in speci­fic places around the islands. The sys­tem called Pookoof charts the starcourses to th ese creatures, each with aunique nam e, from all of the islands inthe Central Carolines. Legend holdsthat the creatures of Pookoof were placedin th e sea by Fanur and Wareyang, th esons of Palulap, the great navigator, tohelp th e Palu whe n lost . When onecrea ture dies, ano ther member of thesame spec ies takes his place. As onenavigator put it, "We have Pookoof be­cause we don't have cha rts and sextantslike the navigators from America."

Micronesian navigators all claim tohave sighted crea tur es from Pookoof. (Imyself "sigh ted" one, a billfish verynear to its prescribed location north­east of Satawa1.) Some crea tures un­doubtedl y inhabit spe cific areas whichthey find agreeabl e because of certainprevailing conditions. Off the BostonHarbor entrance buoy, for instance, onecan nearly always find whales who aredrawn there by th e abundance of foodin a series of underwater upwellings.

Undo ubtedly, similar phenomena existin Micron esia. In th e absence of an ob­jective means of determining position,failure to sigh t a member of Pookoof isnot interp reted as a challenge to thesystem but as evidence that the canoe isin th e wrong pla ce.

The Po Ceremony

One aspec t of the ancie nt artof navigation is no lon gerpr.ac~iced .. Un til Christi~n

rrussionan es put a stop to It,navigators were tau ght sacred magic

rites in the Po ceremony, a period ofseclusion and ritua l instruction thatlasted ma ny months. These rituals cov­ered every part of a voyage. As sole pro­prietor of sailing magic, the Palu hadgreat authority. This authority was es­sen tial since a navigator often had tolead his crew throu gh da ngerous seas,through storms, through periods ofth irst , hunger and fear. Using magicritua ls, th e Palu could invoke spirits toens ure the success of a voyage. In orderto th ink with clari ty, he performe d arite exhorting Yalulawe, the patron spirit

A Sea of Natural Signs 11

In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl and a five-man crew set off from Peru aboard Kon Tikito prove that South American Indians could have settled Polynesia. Heyer­dahl's theory was supported by early anthropological and archaeologicalstudies which purported to demonstrate similarities between Polynesian and

American Indian cultures, and by prevailing winds and currents which flow fromeast to west, from the American continent directly into the heart of the Pacific.Aboard even the most primitive craft, it seemed possible to drift with these windsand currents to one of Polynesia's many islands.

Kon Tikiwas made by lashing together nine balsa logs. A small hut was built atopthe raft to provide shelter for the crew, and a mast was rigged with a square sail totake advantage of the following winds.

As Heyerdahl gave the order to set sail, dire predictions rang in his ears; the balsalogs would become waterlogged and sink, the lashings would fray and break, orheavy seas would wash the men overboard.

Tothe crew's delight, the raft quickly demonstrated her seaworthiness. Wavesbigenough to crash aboard simply washed through the spaces between the logs; thebalsawood was so soft that it cushioned the rope lashings and prevented them fromchafing; and sap in the logs made them almost waterproof so the raft easily main­tained her buoyancy. The sea also provided an unexpected bounty-the crewcaught so many fish they could have subsisted without the tinned rations they hadstowed aboard.

On August 7th, 1947, KOIl Tikicrashed on a reef that surrounds Raroia Island inthe Tuamotu chain, just east of Tahiti, demonstrating that Polynesia could have beensettled by drift voyages from South America. But proving such voyages possibledoes not mean they actually took place.

Modern research has now shown that the ancestors of the Polynesians weresk.iJ!~'!!1.'wiKa.!QE~~.~<;>~~e!.Q1J.~ t~ .t)9?!9~~,t~~.I?~cW£!mD)Jsl~I!rt..s9g!r~~~t~~ja/.~p~skilled navigators who set out to explore the Pacificfrom Island Southeast Asia, notPeru. Although Heyerdahl's theories are no longer accepted by an overwhelmingmajority of scholars, the voyage of Kon Tiki was a courageous experiment and astimulus for the later voyage of Hokuleu, a replica of a Polynesian double canoe thatsailed against the prevailing winds from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1976.

RotosraPh [mm Kon-Tikiblj Thor Heuerdahl . 1910, 1978 by Thor Heucrdahl. (Courtesy RandMcNallv co< Companv.)

12 The Naviga tors

of navigators, to bring 'brightness" intohis bod y. The outrigger itself was theres ide nce of Yalulawe. At sea, th e Paluprep ared a specia l medicine, a sheaf ofherbs which were tied to the outriggerplatform. Later in the voyage, he mayhave performed a differen t ritua l toplease the spirit that resided in themas t .

Whe n his "hair turned grey," thenavigator learned th e secre t weaponsof bad magic- cha nts powerful enoughto kill or maim a ma n. But the wise or"bright" man used his knowledge onlyin the service of his people. If he re­sorted to bad magic th e spiritual re­prisals against his own family would begrave. At the core of the code of the Paluwas a duty to take care of othe rs .

On small, widely scattere dislands which are interd e­pendent for food, trad e andeven marriage partne rs, the

Palu is still the mainstay of communi tysurvival. Satawal is a poor island byMicronesian standards. Hav ing nolagoon or extens ive reef system, its sea­life is sparse and eas ily depl eted. ThePalu must guide canoes on fishingexpe ditions to distant reefs if theisland's five hundred residents are tosurvive. The navigator is a communityleader who sets an example of wisdom,~i§s.U:?1 !1;1_E;~a!l_c!_c2_l;l~?g~..'r __ ~_ .. _~ _~uo,

discipline and courage.On Satawal a man's life revolves

around the canoe house. A large thatchroofed struc ture ope n on all sides, it isthe place where legends and the arts oflivin g are passed on. Here, as bread ­fruit logs are sha ped into canoes underthe watchful eye of the Sennap, ormaster canoe-builder, boys and youngmen are train ed in manual skills, his­tory, ritual and social respo ns ibility.Here the navigator is so important thatwhe n Mau and his brother Urupa wereaway for a time during my stay, all lifewent out of the canoe hou se. Weplanned no voyages. The "Talk of Sail­ing" stoppe d. We becam e rudderless.Whe n Mau returned, the tempo of ourlives picked up and my training startedonce again .

Mau and his fellow navigators are themost highl y trained men in their soci­ety and they are regard ed with im­mense resp ect and even awe. ButChristian ity and Western technologyare changing the way of life on Satawal.The Palu have lost the power of theirmagic. To get "meat"- fish or turtle - asdistinguished from mere "food"­breadfruit or taro - you still have to sailto distant islands and reefs. And to sail,

you have to navigate. but witho utmagic, the navigator becomes merely apractical man. "First we throw away thetaboos," Mau told me, "the n we th rowaway the navigation ." Traditionally, thesea t of know ledge and love in Micro­nesia was in the stomach, close to theheart. But in the West it is in the head ,away from the heart . The childre n whogo to Yap, Ulithi or Guam are educatedin the ways of the West . "My genera­tion and all the generations before mestrove to learn navigation ," Mau saidone night as we sat under the stars ."But the young don't care about it now.Instead they want to earn money. Ifthey go away to the American highschoo l in Ulithi or to college in Gua m,they often do not return ."

~ulIg Satawalese III I'll areexpected tobe COI/1­

peteut sailors by their 12thbirthday. (CourtesyStephen Tholllas)

Piailug and his contemporaries fearthey are the last living represen tativesof an unbroken tradition of navigationand seafaring spanning more than twothou sand years. It is a traditi on that

I wove myth, magic, ethics and meta­physics into a seamless web, the centerof which was navigation . It is a webthat is, above all, bea utiful. Once, lateat night, after we had been talkingmany hours I aske d Piailug about the"Talk of Navigation." "1 don't knowabou t the othe rs," he said, forcing thewords out as if in a kind of pain, ''b ut inmy mind the talk of navigation is beau ­tiful. Inside my bod y the same, I saythe talk of navigation is beautiful ,"

Stephen Thomas is a western navigatorwho has sailed many thousands of miles.He has just returned from Satawal wherehe studied navigation with Mau Piailug,and is now writing a book on Caroliniannavigation.

With her strangely shaped crabclaw sails, and her narrow twin hullsspanned bya deck lashed to crossbeams, Hokule'a seems to be an appari­tion from some distant planet. She is, in fact, a replica of an ancientPolynesian canoe-as exact a copy as science can make. The canoe is

named after the star that seems to hang over Hawaii (the Hawaiian word, Hokule'a,means "star of joy"), a star that may have been a celestial beacon for earl y naviga­tors who discovered Hawaii from islands to the south .

If the Polynesians made intentional voyages of discovery, they must have pos­sessed both an accurate system of navigation and a seaworthy ocean-going canoe .Hokule'a's scientific mission was to sail round-trip between Hawaii and Tahiti todemonstrate the seaworthiness and sailing ability of her ancient design, and toshow that a trained non-instrumental navigator, Mau Piailug, could guide thecanoe across 2500 miles of open ocean to an accurate landfall .

Hokule'a's twin hulls are each 62'3/1 long. They are spanned by crossbeams ('iako)which are V'6/1 long and spaced 6' apart . A platform 42'6/1 by 9'6/1 is lashed atop the'iako. The canoe's sails are shaped like giant crabclaws, following the pattern de­picted in ancient petroglyphs and in sketches made by early European explorers .In practice, the upward curve of the booms allowed the crew to move about easilyon deck, and the scoop formed at the top of the sail spilled wind during heavygusts so that the rigging was not strained.

The knowledge necessary to build a voyaging canoe from traditional materialshas been lost in Hawaii, so Hokule'a was constructed of modern laminated woodsand fiberglass . She is a "performance replica"- her shape is true to ancient designso that the performance of such canoes could be tested.

On May 1, 1976/ Hokule'a sailed from the island of Maui with a crew of 17and 6tons of cargo/ bound for Tahiti. Making an average speed of more than 3.5 knotsdurinz tho trD.·P, "hp ("ovprp~ ') ~OO miles in 33 days without maior incident. On herLtTCt,3 in e~o'G, v..:1 rU,A l.u"I TMtil'r'. U 'J.UI"Ulf) U.11 UY'-1"6\".. ~Y'-'-u V.I. UIV1.'- UIC.UI ..J.'-' "'I V""during the trip, she covered 2/800miles in 33 days without major incident. On herreturn to Hawaii, Hokule'a encountered more favorable winds and sailed 2600milesin 22 days. The voyage demonstrated the canoe could sail into the wind; carry alarge enough crew and sufficient supplies to colonize distant islands; and that shewas indeed sufficiently seaworthy to make long ocean passages.

Among Polynesians throughout the Pacific, Hokule'a's voyage rekindled anancient pride of accomplishment that had been dimmed by 200 years of Europeandomination. Today the canoe sails on educational voyages among the Hawaiianislands where her crew educates Hawaiian children in the skills of their ance stors.For many years to come, Hokule'a will continue to sail in the hearts and minds of apeople whose ancestors were among the most daring seafarers on earth .

(Cuurfesy Polyllesian VOljagil/g Society.)

A Sea of N atural Signs 13

Canoe HouseTales: The Poetryof DiscoveryA windowon thepast, thewisdomofPacificIslanders ishanded down tous in poetryandchant.By Marjorie Sinclair

The canoe has been at sea for a month , sailing north­eas t from Tahiti, guide d by a navigator who followsancie.nt star path s. For the l ~st two hou.rs, he has beensteen ng toward an almost imperceptible smudge in

th e sky -a low cloud th at see ms to han g over one spo t ofocea n. Slowly, the land is revealed ben eath the cloud. It isone of the high islands in the Hawaiian cha in . A kah una-:epriest - composes a chant to celebrate this hard -won landfall ,~F\e~,q~--'"rali\pm,~Q ~ !:Xa,{U'{5lt~~t\Qm Jflj;tj~L..nv v . , .w,~ , uu ,one of many mad e by voyage rs from Tahiti .

Here is Hawaii, an island, a manHawaii is a man indeedHawaii is a manA child of Ta hiti . . .

14 The Navigators

This cha nt is dedi cated to Moikeh a, one of th e lead ers ofan early migrati on from Tahiti to Hawaii . The cha nter mayhave been Karna hualele, "ch ild of th e flying spray," aren own ed kahuna.

Such cha nts and the myth s and legends of Polyn esia are arich so urce of insight into th e lives of thi s an cient peopl e.Some chants celebrate the glory of voyages across broad seastre tches ben eath th e overarch ing sky -a world of winds ,currents and stars that contained all the inform ation neededby a navigator to make landfall. Others tell of the crea tion ofthe land and sea from a great void , the birth of gods and god­desses, and the adventures of great heroe s. Withou t writing,the an cient Polyn esians composed a vas t oral literaturewhich may be compa red to the archa ic Greek poem ofOdysseu s; to the creation stories of th e Bible; and the grea tmystic adventures of Beowulf.

One of the mysteries the Polyn esians puzzled over was thecreation of the islands themselves. How, they asked, did theislands rise out of such expa nses of ocea n? To explain themystery, ge nerations of kahunas crea ted th e tales of Maui ­tr ickster, hero, demi- god ; and of Tahaki , another demi godblessed with beautiful red skin (a sacred color), cur ly redhair, towering sho ulde rs and pen etratin g brown eyes. Th estories of th eir exploits were sung by bards during celebra­tion s, by men in community houses whil e making can oes,by moth ers to their childr n.

Maui 's story is lon g and complicated, cha nging in detailfrom island gro up to island group. In one version, himot her threw him at birth into the sea. Seaweed and wavescradled the baby; jellyfish swaddled him in th eir flesh forprotection ; winds carried him to shore. Grown to manhood ,Maui performed outstand ing feat s. With a rope mad e of hissister's pubic hair he captured the sun. Th at is why (say thelege nds) the sun moves slowly through th e sky and peopl elegends) th e sun moves slowly throu gh th esky and peopl ecan cook th eir food before dark . Maui stole th e secret of firefrom the fire god, a Polyn esian Prometh eus. With his magicfishhook, he pulled islands into daylight from the darknessat the bottom of the sea. He fished up New Zealand with ahook made fro m a jawbon e. It was tough work and hecha nted an incantation to make the heavy we igh t of th eisland !fish lighter : "Why, Oh Tonga Nui!!Art thou sulkily?!Biting below there? . " Finally the fish , which was also land ,eme rged . Leavin g it in the care of his brothers, he we nt to

fetch a kahuna to perform appropriatereligiou s rites. Whi le Maui was gone, hibrothers began to cut up the fish and ea tit. Thi s is w hy, tod ay, New Zealand hasrugged mountain landscap es.

Song in Mau's Canoe House

"The canoe is movingIt's covered with people

It's sailing far away on the oceanI'm longing for my child,

They are following the Path,they are sailing alone,

on the sea they belong to,on the most distant sea,

it's bound to happen,determined btl masic.determined by magic,

by the words of the spirit,the month will soon come,

when he will appear.The one, my child."

Ma ui also pulled up islands in th e Hawaiian gro up. Thehook he used was called Manaiakalani, "come here fromheaven ."

Manaiakalani is the great fishhookof MauiThe wholeearth was the fishline tied to the hookKauikiwas bound to the earth and towered high .ThereHanaiakamalama lived.The mudhen ofHina was the bait.The bait tangled to the bitter dea th,Lifting up the very base of the island,Drawing it to the surface of the sea.Taha ki was another

Po ly nes ia n fis her ofislands. In Tahiti he wascalled Tafa'i or by one ofh is more e la bora tenam es, 'Ia-fa'i-uri-i-te-tia­i-Havai'i, meaning "By­revel ation -pi loti ng-i n­th e-sea-of-H awai'i ." Afish er of islands and agrea t navigator, Tah akiwe nt on two long qu estsin sea rch of his fath erand in sea rch of a beauti ­ful wife. Such quests area basic th em e of legendsin many lands - Odys­se us's great voyage was aqu est for hom e. Taha kijourneyed in a giantd oubl e-hull ed ca noenam ed "Rainbow." Hertd'iYfe6::l~ 1~11 f\-y&'UW:'r ::lA~

served as a navigator andas tro loger. His paddlewas so heavy th at no oneel e co u ld lift it . AHawaiian cha nt enlarges,as p oetry d oes, th emeaning of th e canoeca lle d Rainbow. InHawaii Tahak i was calledKaha'i.

The ra inbowwas the path of Kahai;Kahai climbed, Kahai strove;He wasgirded with the mystic enchantment of Kane;He was fasc inated by the eyesof Alihi.Kaha i mounted on the flashing raysof lightFlashing on men and canoes . . .Tah aki's island fishing in th e Pacific is a lon g and exciting

tale. Aboard Rainbow he and his men sa iled from the islandof Tahiti to Moorea. The re th ey thrust spears into the islandto ancho r it . They traveled in all directions, fishing up newislands or anchor ing them with their spears. They journeyedas far as th e Tua mo tus whe re th ey pulled up "those beauti­fu l atolls and islets fringed with bed s of coral of all hues andw ith pearl oysters." ..

They sa iled far to th e north and found th e Hawaiiani lands clus tere d togeth er ben eath th e sea. Tahaki, likeMaui, fishe d up those islands. The first one Tahaki pull ed upwas Hawaii "whose high twin mountain rose up from theirwatery bed and went on risin g until th ey reached an am az­ing height and were lost in the clouds." The seco nd island hepull ed from th e sea Tah aki nam ed after th e demigod, Maui .

Whe n he finishe d pulling up th e Hawaiian arch ipelago,Taha ki sa iled back to Tahiti. There he gathered "people tod well on th e beautiful new land, bringing th em w ith th eirgods, their chiefs and breadfruit and othe r plants." The talesof thi s legendary demi-god may have been based on anactua l navigator who led th e first migration from Tahiti toHawaii .

Wh at can we m ake of th ese stories of fishing up islandsand ancho ring th em in place with th e powerful thrusts ofmagical spears? Perhap s th ese too are poetic metapho,:s forreal events in th e Polyn esian past . From the vantage point of

a canoe, bound on a voy­age of discovery, newislands would appear torise mysteriously fro mth e sea, as if by magic.The navigators who dis­covered th ese new landsmay have been seen byth e less ven turesomepeopl e left behind asheroes who did indeed"fish up" th ese islands.Furthe rmore, th e posi­tion of th ese newly dis­covere d islands m ustoften have proved elu­s ive - th e curren ts,winds and star path swere not yet know n withcertainty. They appearedto move , to swim likefish. It may have re­quired dozen s of voyagesquired dozen's of voyagesover many ce n tu r iesbefore th e navigation alway points were th or­oug hly understood andth e journey becam e rou­tin e. Fina lly, th e loca­tions of th e island s werefixed as if thrust throughby a spear and so pinnedto th e ocea n floor.

The unwritten poetr y of Polyn esia contains many of thesestories. But most importantl y it revea ls the perceptions, th einner feelings of th e people who inhabited th e Pacific. Inman y soc ieties th e words spo ken in cha nt and poetry havea spec ial power. They not only convey information or knowl­edge abo ut p ast events, th ey also influen ce eve nts in th efuture -the words have magical potenc y.

In th e isolated atolls of Micronesia's centra l Caro lineIslands, the people still live as th e an cient Polynesians, in aworld without writing- a world in which th e spo ken wordconveys all of society's accumulated wisdo m. Here the tech­niques of navigation , the locations of schools of fish , and th eprop er ways to make a canoe or build a house are passed onorally from father to so n. Here too, th e words have power.

Us ing a spec ial effigy and a potent magical incantation, aMicronesian navigator can cha nge th e weather:

Black weather pass to either side.Goaway to the south,Go away to the north,No more wind! Like an inland pool. . .

The Poetry of Discovery 15

..... '<tiC 9 lip..·· .

. - ' . . - : - , . .- . . .

" .' - '

...__. . . . .

ooC _-~_-:

Dwindle, dwindle, rainGoaway, goaway, ra inI send fire, I sendfireFea r the strongfire, fear the strongfire.

Other cha nts are used to prep are oneself for sea. Before

etting off on a voyage, a navigator from Haluk atoll may first

invoke the spirit of navigation . The n he rubs sa nd on his

i~voke the spirit of navigation . Then he rubs sa na on rus

ches t and chants:

Sand, Sandkindlea firewithin me.Sand, Sand, that it may belight in there.

The "light" and the "fire" are kn owled ge, the clarity of

vision need ed to follow the star pa ths and th e courage

need ed to rem ain steadfast. A seco nd so ng rep eats the re­

ques t for know ledge:

Maya fire Iight up insideme. . .Wave a torch inside me to keep it light.

A cha nt recorded from the islan d of Puluwa t, not far from

Satawal, tells the adve ntures of a fish erman who probes the

reefs aro und various islands with a stick. A pa rrot fish is d is­

turbed and flees before the probing stick, sw imming to the

reef surrounding ano the r island . Again th e probing stick,

and again the fish sw ims, each time he follows a star course

from one island to the next. Told in canoe hou es for gene ra­

tion s, th e story of thi s fisherma n's journey contains th e

know ledge that young navigators mu st memorize, the sa il­

ing d irections between these islands.In the seafaring soc iety of Micrones ia, the wome n are

often left at home. They yearn for their hu sbands and lovers

and are anxious about their safe ty. They often compose and

sing songs wh ile weav ing or cook ing in the compa ny of

other wome n.

He could not sleepat night.As I lay by him, he said, "l must goaway."I have no heartfor work,Ili e and think ofhim,I think, "If only he could have stayed."

16 The Navigators

I think of my belovedgone to Yap.While my bodysleeps here,Can I go to him in a dream?Ca n I go to him like ra in falling?

The Micron esian Palu, like th e ancient Polynesian navi­

ga tor, carries his complicated kn owled ge of the sea w ith

him -the appearance and th e sequence of stars moving

f\)m~~tt~~?lzJ1lJl lt~e,?,i~pW,~a9S;9!.'?~~d 3.n~U~~h ~_~~e dt

across the horizon, th e significance of bird and fish , the di­

rection of sea-swells, the vaga ries of wind. Around thi s

heroic figure gathe r human feelings - yearn ing, dan ger,

dream and achieveme nt-expressed in poetry, song and

cha nt.In the Pacific, poetr y is not a se pa rate artistic act, it is part

of daily life. The recitation of a chan t may be a religious act,

the convey ing of history, a famil y chronicle or ge nea logy.

The spoken word is the only way that wisdo m is passed on,

so it is sacred. A mistake of one word in a sacred cha nt may

brin g death or disaster. At one tim e, lon g ago, everyo ne in

the Pacific heard th e cha nts - th ey were in everyo ne's

thou ghts and dream s. Some of th e words have end ured.

Now wr itte n down, th ey ope n a window on th e past , th ey

are a gift to us fro m unknown composers from a nearly

vanished world. A Ton gan poet still sings:

If I give you a mat it will rot,If I give cloth, it will betorn,The poem is bad, yet take it,That it can be a boat and house to you.

Authorand teacher, Marjorie Sinclair has spent thegreater part

of her life studying and writing about the oral literature of the

Pacific.

A guide to discussion topics, projects, and resources for furtherexploration of the themes presented in The Navigators.

Teacher's Guide

How to use the filmThe Navigators can be used to:

• provide stude n ts with th e feelingtha t they have personally visited thePacific islands an d have met themajor personalities involved in Pa­cific research .

• serve as a focus for fu ture discus­sions and class projects.

• stimulate a natural curiosity and in­terest in learning more about the Pa­cific th an is covered in the film.

Before Viewing the Filmtsetore vieunng the FIlm

It is suggested th at the teacher talkabo ut the film before showing it to theclass to present th e major categories ofinformation that will be discussed afterth e screening .

The Navigators documents our cur­rent understanding of the origins of thePolynesians, th eir rou tes of migrationand th eir navigational expertise. Askyour stu de n ts to think about what evi­den ce is presented to support the con­clusions th at are reached .

The film tells about life on the tinyMicrones ian island of Satawal. Ask thestude n ts to pay atten tion to th e impor­tant role played by navigators and toth e various skills th ey use to find theirway w itho u t ch arts or instruments; tothe way th at young peop le learn tradi­tion al skills witho u t schools or books;to the reasons that non-instrumentalnavigation has survived on this island;and to the cha nges that are now threat­ening Satawa l's traditional way of life.

After Viewing the FilmDISCUSSION TOPICSI. Our understanding of the origins ofthe Polynesians, th eir routes of migra­tion and navigational expertise, is the

res ult of research by human ities scho l­ars in such fields as archaeology, an­th ropology, linguistics, h istory andmytho logy.

• What kinds of questions do thesescholars ask?

• Wha t kinds of evide nce do they useto answer th em? Wha t specific cluesdo th ey use to determine the migra­tion routes of the Polvnesians?

• How does the combina tion of differ­ent research techniques allow us tocome to conclus ions about th e ori­gins of th e Polynesians _a_n_~ t_tt_~ tim­gins of the Polynesians and the tim­ing and manner of their migrationth rough out the Pacific?

• What evide nce exists that the Polyne­sians were sk illed navigators andseafarers?

• How are th e jou rn als of early Eur­opeans who explored the Pacificinvaluabl e tools for Polynesianresearch?

II. Compare the voyages ma de by KonTiki an d Hokulea. What did th ese voy­ages actual ly prove? Is there a differencebetween showing that a voyage ispossible and showing that it actua llyhappened?III. Archaeologists attempt to recon­stru ct the culture an d way of life ofextinct societies by study ing th eirar tifacts. They often examine existingsocieties for clues to how life mighthave been lived in th e past. Wha t cluesare provided by life on Satawal thatmight help archaeologists reconstructthe ancient societies and cultures ofthe Pacific?IV.Anthropologists study existing hu­man societies to gain an understandingof how people with different culturesview th eir world and orga nize their

lives . What might an anthropologicalstudy of Satawal reveal about both theresi dents of that island and aboutourselves?

• The people of Satawal have no wri t­ing or metallurgy. How is knowledgerecorded and passed on between thegenerations wi thou t books? Whattakes the place of libraries andschools? How are buildings, boats,clothing and other necessities of lifecrea ted?

• What different skills are necessary tobuild a canoe? Wha t materials areused? How are the people of Satawalmore self-sufficient, less dependenton other nations for their survival,tha n we are?

• The navigators of Satawa l have nocharts or ins truments to guide th emon voyages. Wha t substi tutes do theyuse for these technical devices?

• Why has non-instrument navigationsurvived on Satawal but died outelsewhere?

• How an d why might the conceptionsof time, space, weather and evenindividual op tions be different onSatawa l from those of an indust rialsocie ty?

• How has the adoption of Christian­itx,~]-W.n,l!ft'i\:: WufRle 1flVAjtrtJ~funfity changed the role and status ofnavigator on Satawal?

• Some people "look down" on socie­ties that are no t as tech no logicallyadvanced as their own, callingpeople who do not know how towrite or have not discovered theprocesses of metallurgy "primi tive."With an understanding of the accom­plishments of Mau Piailug and th epeople of Satawal, do you feel suchterms or atti tudes are warranted?

• The introduction of western ideaswill obvious ly have an enormousimpact on the young people of Sata­wal. Discuss what mig ht happen tothem . If you were an all powerfuland benevolent dictator, wha t poli­cies would you adopt to either accel­era te or retard th ese changes?

For Further ResearchOver the past two hundred years,

Western ideas have moved into thePacific, imported by whalers, mission­aries, se ttlers, traders and tourists.Many of the Pacific islands have fallenunder the control of vario us colonialpowers.• Discuss how th e estab lishme nt of a

Teacher's Guide 17

cash economy, schools, churches,and new technologies have changedthe cultures of the Pacific.

• The roles played by women and menon Satawal seem to be clearl y di­vided . How do these roles differfrom those in our society? How arethese roles changing in the UnitedState s? What changes might occur onSatawal as Western idea s and institu­tions become more common?

• Explain the impact of French,German, English, Spanish , Dutch,Japanese and American contact inthe Pacific. If there are differences,how do you account for them? Werethese colonial powers motivated dif­ferently or did they seek differentgoa ls?

• List the strategic and commercialresources that have attracted Westernpowers to the Pacific during the lasttwo centuries.

• The Pacific was not "discovered" byEuropeans until they had developedpowerful sailing ships, charts andthe magnetic compass. Discuss whysome of these European explorersmight have doubted the ability of thePolynesians to have explored andnavigated across the Pacific beforetheir arrival.

• Under the impact of Western civiliza­tion , the people of the Pacific havelost much of their cultural identityand pride. Describe ways that thework of scholars might reawaken thisidentity and pride.

• Discuss areas in your communitywhere scholarly research has addedto your understanding of your ownhistory and cultural background, orthat of the indigenous people wholived in your area before you.

ProjectsArrange a trip to a local planetarium

to identify some of the stars used innavigation . Perhaps a special perfor­mance can be arranged to demonstratethe rising and setting points of stars(the star compass) in the latitude ofSatawal (8 degrees north), or the ap­pearance of the sky as it changes withthe seasons. Discuss the prodigious ac­complishment of Micronesian naviga­tors who must memorize the nighttimesky for every day of the year.

Visit a local museum that has a dis­play of Pacific artifacts. Arrange a dis­cussion of what these artifacts revealabout daily life on a specific island or

18 The Navigators

how they can be used to trace migra­tion across the Pacific. Organize alecture by a local professor whospecializes in Pacific archaeology.

Arrange a visit to a local boatyard(perh aps a yard where they are buildingwoo de n boats). Examine th e complexgeo metrical shape ofany boat, wh eth erit be an ancient canoe or a modernracing yacht. How is thi s sha pe arri vedat? How does th e bui lder tran late thelines of the boat from a plan to thefini sh ed hull? Discu ss the feat ofmem orization necessary to con str uctsuch a boat witho ut plan s.

Xerox some of the illustrations madeby vario us European explorers of thePacific (Dodd's book has a good selec­tion, see bibliography). You will findgreat differences be tween them indetail, rendering, the even ts that are

The following is a partial list ofmuseums with collections or exhibits ofartifacts from Micronesia or Polynesia.Those listed with an asterisk havem8se ~&~e6tiWlrn r,;RP'3Js(lwj~k X\ilVemajor collections. Check with yourlocal museums, historical societies orother cultural centers to learn moreabout resources in your own area.

The American Museum of NaturalHistory (*), Central Park West at 79thStreet, New York City, 10024.

Bernice P. Bishop Museum (*), 1525Bernice Street, Honolulu, Hawaii,96819.

The Brooklyn Museum, EasternParkway, Brooklyn, New York, 11230.

Buffalo Museum of Science, Hum­boldt Park, Buffalo, New York, 14211.

Thomas Burke Memorial WashingtonState Museum, University of Washing­ton , Seattle, Washington, 98105.

Carnegie Museum, 4400 Forbes Ave­nue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15213.

Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloom­field Hills, Michigan, 48013.

Denver Art Museum (*), 1300 LoganStreet , Denver, Colorado, 80203.

recorded, and the way that the Pacificislanders are depicted . Discuss whatthese differences tell us about theartists who drew them and theexp lorers who commissioned them .

Audio-Visual DistributionofThe Navigators

For purchase or rental of film andvideotape copies of TheNavigators, con­tact Sue Marshall Cabezas, Documen­tary Educational Resources, 5 BridgeStreet, Watertown, Massachusetts,02172, (617) 926-0491. Cost (within theUni ted Sta tes) for purchase of a filmcopy is $500.00; cost for a one-timeshowing rental is $50.00. These costsare lower than the normal rates becausethe producer has agreed to take noroyalties.

Field Museum of Natural History (*),Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive ,Chicago, Illinois, 60605.

T0<; A nuplp<; ('nnntv Mnj;lpnm nf Na-

Los Angeles County Museum of Na­tural History (*), Exposition Park, 900Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles,California, 90007.

Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthro­pology, University of California, Ber­keley, California, 94720.

Milwaukee Public Museum, 800 WestWells Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,53233.

Peabody Museum of Natural History,Yale University, New Haven, Connecti­cut, 06520.

Peabody Museum of Salem (*), 161Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts,01970.

Peabody Museum of Archaeology andEthnology (*), Harvard University,Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138.

United States National Museum (*),Smithsonian Institution, Washington,D.C., 20560.

BibliographyWilliam Alkire, An Introduction to the Peoples and Culturesof Micronesia, An Ad diso n-Wes ley Module inAnthropology, 1972. A goo d overview of Micronesianculture. William Alkire is th e author of many books andarticles on this area of the world. A generous bibliographyaccompa nies thi s ar ticle.

j .C . Beagleh ole (editor) , The Journals of Captain JamesCook, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, for theH akluyt Society, 1967-68. Three volumes containing Cook'sjournals made during three voyages to the Pacific. A fascinat­ing firsthand account by one of the most intelligent and per­sisten t of the Pacific explorers.

Peter Bellwood, Man's Conquest of the Pacific, New York,Oxford Uni versity Press, 1979. A large and detailed book,thi s is the standa rd referen ce for th e prehistory of islandSou theast Asia, Melan esia, Micron esia and Polyn esia.

Peter Bellwood, The Polynesians: Prehistory of an IslandPeople, Londo n, Thames and Hudson, 1978. A muchcondense d version of the above book, this edition focuses onPolynesia .

Edwin Grant Burrows, Flower in My Ear: Arts and Ethos ofHaluk Atoll, Seattle, Uni versity of Washington Press, 1963.Nicely written, thi s book is a goo d source of info rma tionconce rn ing the poetry, cha nts and culture of the coral atollsc~Ac~rrnlng~tfie poetry, chants and culture ot the coral atollsof Micronesia.

Ed ward H. Dodd, Polynesian Seafaring, New York , Dodd,Mead and Company, 1972. An excellent over view of Poly­nesian voyaging including many illustrations of canoes anda lucid and rea dable text.

Kenneth P. Emory, "The Coming of the Polynesians," in theNational Geographic, December, 1974. A rea dable but briefint roduction to the settleme nt of Polyn esia .

Ben Finney, "Voyaging Canoes and the Settlement ofPolynesia,"in Science, Vol. 196, No. 4296, 17June 1977, pp. 1277-1285.

Thomas Gladwin, East is a Big Bird, Cambridge, Mass.,Harvard University Press, 1960. Life among the navigators ofthe Micron esian island of Puluwat told in lively prose.

Jack Golson (editor) Polynesian Navigation: A Symposiumon Andrew J. Sharp's Theory of Accidental Voyages,Wellington, the Polynesian Society, 1962. A collection ofess ays from a symposium refuting the conce pt thatcas taways accidentally se ttled Polyn esia. Particularly usefulis the article by G.5. Parson son which contain s many quotesfrom early Eur opean explorers, the firsthand observers ofancien t Polyn esian sailing craft and skills.

A.e. Haddon and J. Hornell, Canoes of Oceania, Hon olulu,Bish op Mu seum Spe cial Publication no. 27, 28 and 29, 1936­1938. The most complete compe ndium of information exist­ing on the voyaging can oes of the Pacific.

Teirua He nry, Ancient Tahiti, Hawaii, Bish op Mu seum Bul­letin, No. 48. A detailed and rea dable accoun t of Tahitianmyth, legend and history.

Thor Heyerda hl, The Kon Tiki Expedition, Londo n, Allenand Unw in, 1951. A gripping account of th e voyage wi th avery brief review of Heyerda hl's theories of Polynesianorigins .

Jesse Jennings (editor), The Prehistory of Polynesia, Har­vard University Press, 1979. An excellent overview of Polyne­sian archaeology, written by several foremost archaeologists.

Herb Kawainui Kan e, Canoes of Polynesia, Island HeritageLimited, 1974. A portfolio of 11 vivid illustration s of Poly­nesian canoes and an accompanying booklet with descrip­tion s and architectural drawings. Wonderful for stimulatingclassroom interes t in th e subject.

Herb Kawainui Kan e, Discoverers of the Pacific, a beautifuland detail ed map with canoe drawings which was insertedin the Nation al Geographic edition for December 1974. Writeto th e Geographic to obtain a copy.

Herb Kawainui Kan e, Voyage, the Discovery of Hawaii, anIsland Heritage Book . A fictional account of a Polyn esianvoyage. Par ticularly useful are the notes to th e rea de r whichprovide a short lesson in Polyn esian voyag ing and culture.

Patrick Kirch, "Archaeology and the EvolutionofPolynesian Cul­ture,"Archaeology magazine, Vol. 32, No. 5, 1979. A discussionof excavations in Lapita villages in West Polynesia.

David Lewis, We, the Navigators, Honolulu, The Universityof H awaii Press, 1972. The source book for understandingnon-instrument navigation in the Pacific, a very read ableaccount of Lewis' research and travels in th e Pacific.

David Lewis, 'Wind, Wave, Star, and Bird," in the National Geo­graphic, December, 1974. An introduction to Micronesian andPolyn esian navigation .

Kath erin e Louma la, Voices on the Wind, Honolulu, BishopMu seum Press. A very rea da ble accoun t of Polynesianmythology and folklore.

Marjorie Sinclair, The Path of the Ocean: Traditional Poetryof Polynesia, Honolulu, Uni versity of Hawaii Press, 1982.A fine collection of Polyn esian poetry with a conciseintroduction .

Yosihiko H. Sino to, "The Huahine Excavation: Discovery ofanAncient Polynesian Canoe," Archaeologymagazin e, Vol. 30, No.2, 1983. Descriptions of Sino to's discovery of woo de n partsfrom th e only kn own ancient Polynesian voyag ing canoe.

Stephen Tho mas, "The Puzzle of Micronesian Naviga tion,"Pacific Discovenj magazine, San Francisco, The CaliforniaAcade my of Sciences, Vol. XXXV, No. 6, Nove mber­December, 1982. A good review of Micronesian navigation altechniques.

Bibliography 19

Glossary

Atoll A coral island consisting of a ring-shaped reef enclosing a lagoon .

Lapita A type of pottery characterized in its earliest phases, from 1600B.C.to 500B.c., by complex geometric designs. Discovered in archaeologi­cal excavations from the Bismark Archipelago to the islands of Fiji,Tonga and Samoa, Lapita pottery allows archaeologists to trace themigration route of the first settlers of Polynesia.

Proa A canoe used in Micronesia . The canoes of Satawal change directionby "shunting'<- moving the sail from one end of the canoe to the other.The hull is asymmetrical, shaped like an airfoil, so water flowingaround the hull balances the drag of the outrigger and allows thecanoe to sail in a straight direction.

Sowinet The Satawalese term for "master of dividing," a respected personchosen to divide a valuable commodity among recipients. MauPiailug is chosen to divide fish after a communal harvest of the reef .

Sennap The Satawalese term for "master canoe builder."

Sennit Rope made from coconut fiber.

YaLuLawe A patron spirit of navigators.

Huahine An island about 100 miles northwest of Tahiti. Here, archaeologistYosihikoSinoto has discovered the only known remains of an ancientlffi~mI1<o;S'j'n6ton~sarscBvereame OnlyKnown remams or an ancientPolynesian voyaging canoe.

Adze A tool similar to an axe, but with its cutting edge mounted at a rightangle to the handle. Adzes are used in shipyards today and were oneof the most important tools used by the ancient Polynesians.

Micronesia Literally meaning "small islands," the area of Micronesia encom­passes the western region of the North Pacific including the Caroline,Gilbert, Marshall and Mariana Islands.

MeLanesia Literally meaning "dark islands," Melanesia includes an area stretch­ing from New Guinea through the Solomons and New Hebrides toand including the islands of Fiji.

PoLynesia Literally meaning "many islands," this area is bounded by a vasttriangle with its apices at New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island.This triangle contains an area almost twice the size of the continentalUnited States.

20 The Navigators

The Navigators Teacher's Guide isfunded by a grant from The HawaiiCommittee for the Humanities.

Major funding for The Navigators filmwas provided by PacificResources, Inc.(PRI) and The Arthur Vining DavisFoundations. Additional funding wasprovided by The Hawaii Committee forthe Humanities.

PBS presenting station is KHET, HawaiiPublic Television.

Schools, museums, libraries and anyother non-profit educational institu­tions should feel free to reproduce anyportion of this guide for educationaluse. All other rights are reserved.

Mailing expenses for this TeachersGuide were provided, in part, by thePublic Broadcasting Service.

For a free copy of this guide, whilesupplies last, please write to Documen­tary Educational Resources, 5 BridgeStreet, Watertown, Massachusetts,02172.

©Sam Low and KHET.

Publisher Sam LowManaging Editor Sam LowEditor Linda SpaldingDesign Julie FrankelConsultant Patrick V. Kirch

Film CreditsProducer/Writer Sam LowDirectors Boyd Estus and Sam LowProduction Manager Sheila BernardEditor William AndersonCinematographer Boyd EstusAssociate Producers Sheila Bernard

and Boyd EstusChiefConsultant Patrick V. KirchSound Recordist Eric TaylorAssistant Cameraman Roger Haydock

The NavigatorsA Continuing Project

The Navigators project continues.What began as a single film, has nowdeveloped into plans for a unique effortto preserve and present the seafaringheritage of the Pacific through a book, atraveling museum exhibit and a newfilm .

Stephen Thomas, author of A Sea ofNatural Signs, will return to Satawal inthe winter of 1984 to continue his stud­ies with Mau Piailug. Thomas is pre­paring a book which will do more thanprovide a complete description of Caro­linian navigation, it will investigate a

unique system of thought that inte­grates vast amounts of memorized datawith a world view that, to us, wouldseem mythical or "magical."

Sam Low, producer of TheNavigators,plans to join Thomas on Satawal todocument the world of the navigatorson film before it is forever lost . Includedin this new film project will be "archi­val" footage for further study and anexploration of how the people ofSatawal are coping with the forces ofchange that are now encroaching ontheir island.

The Peabody Musuem of Salem,Massachusetts, one of the world's fore­most maritime museums, also housesone of the best collections of Microne­sian and Oceanic artifacts in the UnitedStates. The museum's director, Mr.Peter Fetchko, has joined with Low andThomas in planning a traveling exhibitto feature the arts of Micronesia's re­mote islands. Complementing the ex­hibit will be a display of photographsand a series of video viewing stationswhich will provide vivid sequences oflife on Satawal.

Now in its development stage, thisnew project should help to preserve aseafaring heritage that was once foundthroughout the Pacific. Now extantonly on the isolated atolls of the CentralCaroline Islands, this way of life israpidly fading under the influence ofthe "modern" world.