Powerpoint presentation
Indigenous Voyaging: Polynesian Navigation
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Overview
§ Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand
Magellan, is often revered for being the first European to navigate and explore the Pacific (Spanish expedition 1519-1522).
§ When Magellan and his successors
arrived in the Pacific they were amazed to find that thousands of islands were already settled by those they regarded as ‘savages’.
Ferdinand Magellan 1480-1521
§ James Cook
– First voyage: 1768 to 1771 – Second voyage: 1772 to 1775 – Third voyage: 1776 to 1779
§ “How shall we account for this
Nation spreading itself over this Vast ocean? We find them from New Zealand to the South, to these islands to the North (Hawaii) and Easter Island to the Hebrides.”
– James Cook, quoted in Steve Thomas,
The Last Navigator, p. 5.
James Cook 1728-1779
Overview
§ We know the ancestors of the island-dwellers of the Pacific
had been going back and forth across its vast oceanic expanses for thousands of years
§ How did the peoples of the Pacific –with no charts, magnetic
compasses, or navigational instruments succeed in traversing the open seas?
§ A more challenging proposition for European explorers: did
the people they encounter already have a sophisticated navigational and astronomical knowledge?
§ Polynesian navigator, Tupaia, joined the
Endeavour in July 1769 in Ra'iatea and provided Cook with information on the “…existence and approximate bearing of every major island group in Polynesia and Fiji, with the exception of Hawaii and New Zealand.”
§ He had such an impressive geographical
horizon, that it “extended for 2,600 miles from the Marquesas in the east to Rotuma and Fiji in the west, equivalent to the span of the Atlantic or nearly the width of the United States.”
– Quoted in David Lewis, We the Navigators, pp. 342
345.
Joseph Banks 1743-1820
Overview
§ Naturalist, Joseph Banks expressed
surprise that Tahitians knew:
§ “A very large part [of the stars] by their
Names and the clever ones among them will tell in what part of the heavens they are to be seen in any month when they are above the horizon; they know also the time of their annual appearing and disappearing to a great nicety, far greater than would easily believed by an European astronomer.” – J.C. Beaglehole (ed.), The Endeavour
Journal of Joseph Banks 1768-1771, vol. 1,
p. 368.
§ French admiral and explorer, de Bougainville, consulted Tahitian navigator, Aotourou.
§ “[He] Pointed at the bright star in Orion's shoulder, saying, we should direct our course upon it; and in two days we should find an abundant country... He had likewise told us that night, without any hesitation, all the names which the bright stars that we pointed at, bear in his language.”
– Louis Antoine de Bougainville, A Voyage
Round the World, pp. 275-276.
de Bougainville 1729-1811
Overview
§ “When the night is a clear one they steer by the stars... not only do they note by them the bearings on which the several islands with which they are in touch lie, but also the harbours in them, so they make straight for the entrance by following the rhumb of the particular star that rises or sets over it; and they hit it off with as much precision as the most expert navigator of civilized nations could achieve.”
– Andia y Varela, describing Tahitian direction-finding methods.
Quoted in Clifford Connor, A People’s History of Science, p. 43.
§ The appropriation of indigenous geographical and seafaring
knowledge was exhibited in the routine kidnapping of local navigators who were forced to serve as pilots.
§ This was a practice that was initiated by Columbus in the Atlantic and Magellan in the Pacific and which became standard operating procedure for “explorers”.
Accidental one-way voyages?
§ In the past, scholars have contended that the settlement of
the Pacific could have only occurred by accidental one-way voyages—by navigators caught unaware by gales and drifting to previously unknown islands.
§ Take a look at the next two slides:
- The first is a reproduction of perhaps one of New Zealand’s best-known historical paintings by Louis J. Steele and Charles Goldie in 1898.
- The second is a Stamp issued in 1940 on the centenary of the “Proclamation of British Sovereignty” in New Zealand.
§ How have the Polynesian crew been depicted?
Louis J. Steele & Charles Goldie, ‘The arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand’ 1898
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Théodore Géricault, ‘The raft of the Medusa’, c. 1819; in the Louvre, Paris.
Louis J. Steele & Charles Goldie, ‘The arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand’ 1898
Centenary of Proclamation of British Sovereignty stamp issue 1940.
Accidental one-way voyages?
§ Both Goldie and Steele were part of a colonial culture that
was obsessed with questions relating to the human settlement of New Zealand and the other Pacific Islands for a very long time.
§ How did colonial thinkers explain the fact that the people of
the Pacific had successfully traversed vast expanses of open ocean and settled every habitable island?
– It was argued that the people of the Pacific simply could not have
developed sophisticated navigational knowledge and technology by themselves.
– The assumption of European pre-eminence was firmly entrenched in
many models of human development.
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Diffusionist Ideas
§ Major 19th Century theories about the origins of Polynesia
were based on the idea that the people of the Pacific had primordial links to the more advanced civilisations of Europe.
§ For example,
– Polynesians were seen as being related to Classical Greek
culture.
– Biblical notions that Polynesians were one of the Lost Tribes of
Israel.
– The ideas of “racial” science, that Polynesians had Aryan or
Caucasian origins.
– Even archaeological models were imposed on the people of the
pacific e.g. dividing their prehistories into Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods.
Diffusionist Ideas
§ Thor Heyerdahl was an adventurer and
amateur archaeologist.
§ Convinced that the Pacific was peopled from
Peru and that these South American people had brought the kūmara (sweet potato) with them.
§ in 1947 he constructed what he believed was
a traditional South American raft (named Kon Tiki) from balsa wood and set off from Peru.
§ After three months drifting with the South
Equatorial Current and sailing with the south easterly trade winds, he washed up in the Tuamotu archipelago.
Thor Heyerdahl, 1990
Current ideas: Key Influences
§ Three related developments 1. World pre-history was reinterpreted
as a result of radiocarbon dating and the other advances in archaeology;
– Radio-carbon dating provided
information about the timing and geographic progress of humans settlement of the Pacific region.
– The unraveling of the Lapita
pottery cultural complex provided major insights about the precise routes into the remoter island
world.
– New developments in linguistics,
genetic and ethnobotanic studies independently enhanced such findings.
Current ideas: Key Influences
2. By the 1960s there was much readier acceptance of the idea of local adaptation to new and changing environments.
Ø It was now understood that cultural changes could
occur within communities.
Ø Change did not have to wait until new and ‘superior’
peoples or ideas came from outside.
Ø Changes no longer were interpreted as ascending or descending as measured against some European yardstick.
§ Challenged the notion that Polynesians came ready
made to the Pacific.
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Current ideas: Where?
§ Lapita pottery
evidence of human activity in the Pacific.
§ Earliest archaeological
§ The direction of Lapita pottery throughout the Pacific shows the movement of people from the West to the East.
The Lapita pottery trail 2000-4000 BP
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6. Current ideas: Where?
§ Linguistic evidence:
- Comparative historical linguistics applied to Austronesian languages.
- Construction of a ‘proto-language’ from which it is possible to trace the derivation of daughter languages.
Source: Alejandro Gutman and Beatriz Avanzati (2013), The Language Gulper, http://mail.languagesgulper.com/eng/Austronesian.html
Current ideas : Key Influences
§ “The modern understanding is that there was no
Polynesian migration into the Pacific because there were no Polynesians when humans began moving into Oceania. There was, instead, an initial, generalized Austronesian culture that emerged from the Southeast Asian region and subsequently experienced a wide range of adaptations – economic, technological, social, political, linguistic, physiological –as its various communities moved through the islands over thousands of years. The further eastwards they traveled across Oceania, the more isolated they became from the rest of humanity.”
– Howe, K.R., The quest for origins: who first discovered and
settled New Zealand and the Pacific islands?, Auckland:
Penguin, 2003, pp. 61-62.
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Current ideas: Key Influences
§ Studies of Austronesian
maritime technology and navigational techniques have outlined a deliberate strategy of exploration and settlement of the islands.
– Challenged the old idea that the settlement of the Pacific was a result of random, haphazard meandering or drifting, or of being castaway.
“The Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand” 1898 by Charles Frederick Goldie and Louis John Steel
Current ideas: Key Influences
§ Because of the earth’s rotation, stars appear to rise in the east and set in the west, intersecting the horizon at points that do not change perceptibly during a navigator’s lifetime.
§ Oceanic navigators use these rising and setting points to
orient themselves and guide their canoes.
§ At night the navigator heads the canoe toward a rising or
setting star or constellation that has the same or nearly the same bearing as the target island.
§ When sailing cross wind, the navigator picks a star course
to one side or the other of the direct bearing in order to compensate for leeway and current.
Current ideas: Key Influences
§ Their system was therefore based on a number of
recognizable stars or small star groups that were approximately equally spaced around the 360-degree perimeter of the horizon.
§ As a directional guide, it is only useful during times when
they are not very high in the horizon.
§ When the horizon in the direction of travel is clouded over,
navigators look elsewhere for celestial guides e.g. stars rising or setting astern, or the moon and bright planets.
§ During the early morning or late afternoon, navigators rely
primarily on the sun to keep an accurate course, or when clouded over, ocean swells, and less accurately, winds.
Star compass —kāpehu whetū—Aotearoa/New Zealand
Source: https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/622-the-star-compass-kapehu-whetu
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Star compass — Mau Piailug — Micronesia
Source: Hōkūleʻa — http://archive.hokulea.com/navigate/stars.html
Star compass —Nainoa Thompson— Hawai’i
Source: Hōkūleʻa — The Star Compass - http://archive.hokulea.com/ike/hookele/holding_a_course.html
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§ The origins of the diverse peoples of the Pacific can be traced
back along seaways to mainland Asia.
§ It is commonly held that the ultimate ancestors of Polynesians originated in the area around Taiwan and then moved south and east.
§ Setting off in rafts, they gradually dispersed through the large
islands of South-East Asia.
The Pacific: Oceania
§ These people mixed with other Melanesian peoples already
living in Near Oceania, and over time the culture known as ‘Lapita’ developed.
§ They had learned to explore the open sea and survive.
– After millennia of developments in boat building, and
accumulated experience of seafaring in Near Oceania, skilled navigators began to explore in sophisticated canoes.
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§ “The word “canoe” is rather misleading in the present
context, conjuring up as it does a picture of some tiny craft hollowed out from a tree trunk. The vessels with which we
are here concerned... deserve the appellation "ship", rather than "canoe". As an indication of their size, some were longer than Cook's Endeavour.”
§ David Lewis, We the Navigators, p. 53.
Source: Alex Kennedy, Model Tipaerua (model canoe), Tahiti, 2002, Te Papa Tongarewa/ Museum of NZ.
Source: Alex Kennedy, Model drua (sailing canoe), Fiji, 2002, Te Papa Tongarewa/ Museum of NZ.
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§ Migrants voyaged east across the tropical Pacific into Remote Oceania, carrying with them domesticated plants and animals, to sustain settlement in their new island homes.
§ They eventually settled Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, where the
Polynesian culture emerged.
§ Sailed east into French Polynesia and the Marquesas, and then
migrated to Hawaii (600 AD) and Rapanui (700 AD).
The Pacific: Oceania
§ Ultimately explorers arrived at South America, and then
returned to their home islands in Remote Oceania with the kūmara (sweet potato) and a species of gourd.
– Radiocarbon dates for kūmara found on Mangaia in the southern Cook
Islands show that Polynesians had reached South America and returned by 1000 AD.
§ Aotearoa/New Zealand was the last major land mass to be
settled, around 1250–1300 AD.
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Map showing the direction of Austronesian expansion from Taiwan and likely timing of expansion into the Pacific. Dates are expressed in years before present (BP) and are based on current archaeological evidence. The dotted line separates Near Oceania and Remote Oceania.
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2015, 112 (44)