Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T20:06:32.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rediscovering Polynesian Navigation through Experimental Voyaging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2009

Ben Finney
Ben Finney
Affiliation:
(Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai'i)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Over the last two decades, my colleagues and I have sailed a modern reconstruction of a Polynesian voyaging canoe some 40 000 nautical miles through Polynesian waters. This programme has been driven by two intertwined goals: one experimental – to test the sailing technology and navigational methods of the ancient Polynesians in order to resolve issues in Polynesian prehistory; and the other cultural – to enable contemporary Polynesians to relearn the means by which their ancestors found and settled their islands, and thereby gain a better sense of their uniquely maritime heritage and, ultimately, themselves. This paper focuses on the effort to rediscover how to navigate without instruments, and how that rediscovery is helping both to change scientific thinking about the colonization of Polynesia and to transform the selfimage of contemporary Polynesians.

Keywords

1. Human navigation2. Historical3. Small boat navigation
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Navigation , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 1993 , pp. 383 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1Sharp, A. (1956). Ancient voyagers in the Pacific. Polynesian Society Memoir No. 32, The Polynesian Society, Wellington, New Zealand, 2nd edn. Penguin, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Great Britain, 1957.Google Scholar
2 Specifically navigational references include:Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1964). Ara Moana: stars of the sea road. Navigation, 17, 278–288;Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1964). Polynesian navigational methods. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 73, 364–373;Google Scholar
Frankel, J. P. (1962). Polynesian navigation. Navigation (Washington), 9, 35–47;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankel, J. P. (1963). Polynesian migration voyages: accidental or purposeful? American Anthropologist, 65, 1125–1127;Google Scholar
Golson, J. (1963). Polynesian navigation: a symposium on Andrew Sharp's theory of accidental voyages. Polynesian Society Memoir, No. 34. The Polynesian Society, Wellington, New Zealand;Google Scholar
Sharp, A. (1961). Polynesian navigation to distant islands. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 70, 219–226;Google Scholar
Sharp, A. (1963). Ancient Voyagers in Polynesia. Berkeley, University of California Press;Google Scholar
Sharp, A. (1963). Polynesian navigation: some comments. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 72, 384–396;Google Scholar
Sharp, A. (1964). Polynesian navigation. Navigation (Washington), 11, 75–76;Google Scholar
Sharp, A. (1965). Polynesian navigation and logic. Navigation, 18, 244;Google Scholar
Hilder, B. (1963). Polynesian navigational stars. Navigation (Washington), 10, 188–191;Google Scholar
Ákerblom, K. (1968). Astronomy and Navigation in Polynesia and Micronesia. Ethnografisca Myseet, Stockholm.Google Scholar
3Finney, B. (1977). Voyaging canoes and the settlement of Polynesia. Science, 196, 1277–1285.Google Scholar
4Lewis, D. (1972). We the Navigators. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu.Google Scholar
5Kyselka, W. (1987). An Ocean in Mind. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu.Google Scholar
Finney, B., Kilonsky, B. J., Somsen, S. and Stroup, E. D. (1986). Re-learning a vanishing art. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 95, 41–90.Google Scholar
6 Similarly successful experiments in non-instrument navigation have recently been undertaken by yachtsmen: Burch, D. (1986). Emergency Navigation. International Marine Publishing, Camden, Maine. Creamer, M. (1984). Incredible journey, and (1984). A star to steer by, Cruising World, May and September respectively.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1972). We the Navigators, pp. 222–223.Google Scholar
8Finney, B., Kilonsky, B. J., Somsen, S. and Stroup, E. D. (1986). Re-learning a vanishing art. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 95, 71–73, 85–86.Google Scholar
9Finney, B.The Voyage of Rediscovery. University of California Press, Berkeley. In press.Google Scholar
10Babayan, C., Finney, B., Kilonsky, B. and Thompson, N. (1987). Voyage to Aotearoa. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 96, 161–200.Google Scholar
11Finney, B. (1988). Voyaging against the direction of the trades: a report on an experimental canoe voyage from Samoa to Tahiti. American Anthropologist, 90, 401–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12Finney, B.The Voyage of Rediscovery. University of California Press, Berkeley. In press.Google Scholar
13Levison, M. R., Ward, G. and Webb, J. W. (1973). The Settlement of Polynesia: A Computer Simulation. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Galdwin, T. (1970). East is a Big Bird. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Green, R. (1979). Lapita. In, The Prehistory of Polynesia. Jennings, Jesse D. (ed.). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp. 27–60.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1972). We the Navigators. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu.Google Scholar
14Green, R. (1987). Peopling of the Pacific: a series of adaptive steps, or punctuated 394 evolution. Paper presented at Section H, 57th Annual Meeting of Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, 08 24.Google Scholar
Keegan, W. F. and Diamond, J. M. (1987). Colonization of islands by humans: a biogeographical perspective. In Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 10. Schiffer, Michael B. (ed.). Academic Press, New York, pp. 49–91.Google Scholar
Irwin, G. (1992). The Prehistoric Colonization of the Pacific. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Best, S., Sheppard, P., Green, R. and Parker, R. (1991). Necromancing the stone: archaeologists and Adzes in Samoa. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 101, 45–85.Google Scholar
Rolett, B. Marquesas prehistory and the origins of East Polynesian culture. Journal de la Sociétédes Océanistes. In press.Google Scholar
15 Recent analysis of occasions when, during periods of total overcast and calm or patternless seas, Nainoa has been able to orient himself, correctly points to the possibility that magnetoreception plays some role in his and other systems of non-instrument navigation employed by Pacific islanders. For experimental evidence of magnetoreception in human navigation, see:Google Scholar
Baker, R. (1989). Human Navigation and Magnetoreception. Manchester University Press, Manchester.Google Scholar