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WonderNavigation history fact

Polynesian navigators crossed thousands of kilometres of open Pacific without compass, charts or instruments. They steered by rising and setting stars, the sun, ocean swells and seabirds, and kept track of speed and direction in their heads.

Polynesian wayfinding

MigrationOceanHistoryTechnologyCulture

The story behind the card

By the 1970s the old skills had almost disappeared, and some scholars argued that the Pacific islands had been settled by canoes drifting there by chance. The Polynesian Voyaging Society set out to test this with the help of Mau Piailug, a master navigator from the small island of Satawal in Micronesia, where a closely related tradition survived. In 1976 he guided the double-hulled canoe Hōkūleʻa about 4,000 kilometres from Hawaii to Tahiti without any instruments. The voyage showed that deliberate long-distance navigation was possible. Piailug went on to teach Hawaiian navigators, among them Nainoa Thompson, and traditional wayfinding has since been revived across the Pacific.

Türkçe oku
Polinezyalı denizciler pusula, harita ya da hiçbir alet kullanmadan Pasifik'in binlerce kilometrelik açık sularını aştı. Yönlerini doğan ve batan yıldızlardan, güneşten, okyanus dalgalarından ve deniz kuşlarından bulur, hızlarını ve rotalarını akıllarında tutarlardı.

1970'lere gelindiğinde bu eski bilgi neredeyse unutulmuştu ve bazı araştırmacılar Pasifik adalarına insanların rastgele sürüklenen kanolarla ulaştığını ileri sürüyordu. Polinezya Denizcilik Derneği bu görüşü sınamak için Mikronezya'daki küçük Satawal adasından usta denizci Mau Piailug'dan yardım istedi. Satawal'da bu geleneğin yakın bir akrabası hâlâ yaşıyordu. Piailug 1976'da çift gövdeli Hōkūleʻa kanosunu hiçbir alet kullanmadan Hawaii'den Tahiti'ye, yaklaşık 4.000 kilometre götürdü. Yolculuk, uzak adalara bilerek ve yön bularak gidilebileceğini gösterdi. Piailug daha sonra aralarında Nainoa Thompson'ın da bulunduğu Hawaiili denizcileri yetiştirdi; geleneksel yön bulma bugün Pasifik'in pek çok yerinde yeniden yaşıyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Polynesian navigation
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