Wayfinding

$Wayfinding Traditional navigation, or wayfinding, uses knowledge of the sun, moon, stars, wave patterns, wind, clouds, and birds. All of this is committed to memory and complemented by lore covering matters such as the timing of voyages to particular destinations and knowledge of rituals. The Star compass used in navigating across the oceans contains 32 “houses” with stars appearing to rise in a house in the east and set in the corresponding house in the west. Puanga (declination 8 degrees 12’S), for instance, rises and sets in Rā which is centred on 11.25 degrees south. When planning for a voyage the navigator will work out the sequence of latitude stars for the journey with particular emphasis on the rising and setting sun. Sometimes in cloudy conditions a peek at the rising sun may be all the navigator gets to help fix the position of the waka. Preparations for the voyage are made using the unique star compass at Aurere. The waka then becomes the compass when the voyage is underway. On the sail from the Marquesas to Hawai’i in 1995 Te Aurere was navigated to take the waka to the east of the Hawai’ian island group. The arrival of the waka at the latitude of the Hawai’ian islands was determined using the Southern Cross looking back from the waka. The span across the Southern Cross from Gamma Crux to Alpha Crux is very close to the span from Acrux to the horizon at this latitude. Once Te Aurere reached the correct latitude the waka was turned west to approach the “island screen” of the Hawai’ian Islands - a much safer strategy than trying to sail straight for one island across long stretches of open ocean with the risk of missing the target. Traditional navigators used a range of signs that they were close to land before they could actually see it. On the deck of Te Aurere a small atoll with just coconut trees growing on it would only be visible within about 7-10 miles. Clouds hanging over high islands, reflections of lagoons in the sky, plants washed out into the ocean after a storm on land, wave refraction patterns, and birds coming out to fish during the day and then returning to their home island at night are all signs used for what is called “expanded landfall” - knowing where an island is before it comes into view. European recognition of the prowess of Polynesian navigators dates back to James Cook who, after learning some Tahitian, investigated sailing and navigation in Tahiti. His main source was Tupa'ia, a learned Tahitian who told Cook how they sailed their canoes and navigated using the stars, moon and sun. He also gave him sailing directions to islands as far away as the Marquesas to the northwest, the Australs to the South and at least as far west as Samoa, Fiji and Rotuma. Cook was apparently sufficiently impressed with the practical seamanship and navigational skills of the Tahitians and their wide geographical knowledge, to propose that their ancestors originally came from the East Indies where related languages were spoken. Cook believed that they used their sailing canoes, non-instrument navigation, and skill at using westerly wind shifts to work their way eastward, from island to island, against the direction of the prevailing trade winds. Over the years a number of challenges have been made to this theory, particularly in terms of how deliberate the process of colonisation was. These perhaps reached their most strident in 1957 when Andrew Sharp, a New Zealand civil servant turned historian, published Ancient Voyagers in the Pacific, in which he claimed that Polynesia had been settled over a long period by the survivors of maritime accidents. Simulation studies have subsequently shown that the probability of success of accidental migration was infinitesimally small. Mitochondrial DNA links Maori back to ancient origins in what is now Taiwan and southeast China. Te Aurere is part of a Pacific-wide movement which is redressing this view. The first step in this process was the voyage of the Hawai’an double-hulled canoe Hōkūle'a from Hawai`i to Tahiti and back in 1976. With this sailing the Polynesian Voyaging Society showed that the two-way voyages that were celebrated in Hawai’ian oral traditions could be made in a replica of an ancient voyaging canoe without using instruments. Hōkūle'a was navigated on this 2,300 mile voyage by Mau Piailug a master navigator from the Caroline Island of Satawal in Micronesia. On the return leg from Taihiti the navigator was Nainoa Thompson who has gone on with Mau to lead a renaissance in waka navigation. Nainoa has since trained navigators from around the Pacific including Jack Thatcher and Piripi Evans of Te Aurere. Jack, with Hekenukumai and the captain of Te Aurere, Stanley Conrad, now conduct wananga for people who wish to learn the ancient arts of wayfinding and waka sailing. One of the key questions in wayfinding in Aoteroa-New Zealand is how Maori found the islands in the first place. The Koekoeā or Long-tailed Cuckoo (Eudynamys taitensis) may have been one of the keys to the discovery of Aotearoa-New Zealand by ancient Māori. The Koekoeā is widely dispersed in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia but breeds only in Aotearoa-New Zealand. The migration of the Koekoeā south-west from central Polynesia may have been taken by Māori forebears to be a sign that there was land where the Koekoeā were headed. Following them, however, would have been a prodigious leap of faith given that there was no knowledge of how far they might fly. As it turned out, it is 1700 nautical miles (3000 km) from Rarotonga to Aotearoa-New Zealand.$

Te Tai Tokerau Tarai Waka Inc.

Aurere , Aotearoa-New Zealand

Facebook Email Website

Hekenukumai

Wayfinding