they were the greatest navigators in the world by interpreting simple things like
wave movements cloud formations and the arrangement of the stars these ancient
people defined destination points thousands of miles away and it wasn't
guesswork these were the voyages of the Polynesian wayfinders the greatest
Mariners the world has ever seen
1778 Captain Cook is about to land on an unknown island 2,500 miles from the
nearest mainland he will call this land the Sandwich Islands in honor of John
Montagu the fourth Earl of Sandwich a supporter of Cook's voyages today we
call it Hawaii but the island is not unknown nor is it uninhabited to the
people who live there they called the Island Hawaii these
ancient people are descended from the Polynesians they have lived here for
over 1,000 years not only have they lived here but they have thrived cook is
stunned when he meets them how he thinks - these technologically primitive people
have come so far across the vast stretches of earth's largest ocean well
I think their feet is almost unparalleled you have to realize the
time a thousand years ago when Polynesians were treating the ocean as
an open highway that the Europeans were still just clean clinging to the shore I
mean most European sailors couldn't even swim even back in Captain Cook's day
Captain Hook I believe could not swim so it was a very different attitude point
to see here in Polynesia it was seeing the sea as an open highway upon which
they could survive almost indefinitely as long as they had enough rainwater for
drinking water and the fact that they could navigate
this immense space I think it's a tribute to what an amazing feat
Polynesian navigation yes let's share a common language and culture with Hawaii
in the North Altidore or New Zealand in the southwest and Rapa Nui or Easter
Island in the southeast and all these island groups in between I really like
the term Oceania coined by the cappella halfa and it gives that sense that the
ocean is something that connects us all rather than divides us our people were
traveling you know great distances and I mean great just replays I guess I mean
like 2,000 miles or more throughout what we today known as Polynesia way before
Columbus even couple hundred years before the Vikings were sailing in their
part of the world our people were great navigators and
knew that they weren't gonna fall off the edge of the earth they were great
observers great you know greatly intuitive to their environment around
them and and weren't afraid to just go out and explore so you got to realize
Polynesia is the size of North America so imagine this imagine all of North
America being flooded and imagine it people who could steer by the Stars from
Mexico City to Barrow Alaska that's the geography covered by the
Polynesians how does wayfinding really work we fighting is a term that's
related to navigation and how our people use the celestial bodies the atmospheric
conditions the oceanic conditions to navigate their way to from point A to
point B it never ceases to amaze me how the ancient hawaiians were able to
interpret various indicators you know celestial objects birds migratory marine
animals winds currents to be able to deterministically navigate their way
around the polynesian fine in we're finding you're using celestial
bodies the Stars the Sun the moon any planets and so when you see them rising
or setting throughout the night you have a given direction and you can face the
direction that you're heading relative to that point on the horizon and it
applies for the Sun and any other rising or setting the celestial body in one
example say a trip from Hawaii to Tahiti as you cross the equator the Southern
Cross is used along with meridian pairs such as MERS am in canis major and
Canopus in Carina the keel of the ship using these angles an imaginary
north-south line is cut through the center of the deck this maintains a
course for heading to Tahiti when the clouds change to a brownish hue it
indicates land as the underside of the clouds reflect the island color
migratory birds are also observed to point the way to the island well it's
pretty clear now that the Polynesians did settle the Pacific in purposeful
migration using the Stars and other methods to navigate across the vast
ocean there were the beliefs like in the 50s and 60s that maybe they just kind of
stumbled across these different island chains
the polynesian voyaging Society was founded in 1973 to show that ancient
Polynesians could have purposefully settled the Polynesian triangle they set
out to prove that the non-instrumental navigational art of wayfinding really
worked to do this the PDS built a replica of a double-hulled voyaging
canoe the Hokulea this canoe was very strong I mean for 36 years she's been
saying it really gives credit to those have built it to be really tough and
withstand probably hundred thousand miles that she
filled since 1975 to Hokulea has journeyed across the Pacific recreating
the ancient routes of the Pacific sea trades one of the great economist I
think is finding Easter Island which whereas the rest of Polynesia mainly
come in chains of islands Easter Island is just one little dot at the Eastern
southeastern point of the Polynesian triangle and the fact they could find
that is a striking navigational feed just how expansive were these ancient
mariners there is one intriguing story unfolding on the California coastline on
one of the last pristine wilderness areas in California the Channel Islands
archaeologists are finding evidence of an ancient seafaring culture fishing
hooks from the coastline of the American continent have similar qualities to
ancient fishing hooks found in Polynesia considering the talent Polynesians had
for navigating might it have been possible that these navigators reached
the Americas Polynesian artifacts have similarities to those found in South
America and the sweet potato which is native to South America has been found
on Easter Island could it be if it is that it might just
rewrite one of the most widely held beliefs about the way humans settled the
Americas for a long time it has been accepted that during the last great Ice
Age when immense glaciers locked up sea water and lowered the sea levels ancient
peoples walked across the Bering Straits from Russia into the Americas this would
place the new world Exodus about 10,000 years ago but the ancient seafaring
artifacts on California's Channel Islands predate this Exodus by an
additional 2,000 years could it be one more piece of evidence that the
Polynesians sailed across the Pacific even to the American continent if this
is found to be true then it would imply that the Polynesians developed a
technique for regularly voyage across the vast Pacific Ocean that
accomplishment would show that the Polynesians were indeed the world's
greatest Mariners with no equal in human history only further research and
anthropology will someday give us the answer the early Polynesians and the
Hawaiians who were basically explorers of their day they were exploring distant
islands in a vast ocean using nothing more than the instruments their their
senses today's explorers are astronomers on the
top of mountains like the one we're on here
they're explorers because they're discovering new things as well their
discoveries are distant objects in this vast universe so in a way there's many
many parallels that we can draw between yesterday's explorers and today's
scientists I don't see that as discrete I think it's more or less a continuum of
man seeking knowledge of getting a better idea of his place
at one
but daya please