the wave configurations, and the prevailing winds in their region. They recognized land breezes and “sea markers,” which were indicated not only by lines of seaweed and driftwood and the presence of types of fish, but also by the color of the water, especially near contrary currents. Precise directions, in shorter voyages, were given by birds returning to land every night after fishing, or taking off in the mornings; by sea turtles heading for shore; and by marine mammals such as dolphins on their way back from work or play. And smells would be noted, with breezes bringing the scent of green growth as early as a day before land was sighted. Skilled navigators would also feel and hear different wave configurations affecting the movement of the boat, and some of these would indicate the proximity of an island or the influence of a current. Reflections, such as the green of underwater atolls on the underside of clouds, would also help, along with the character of the clouds themselves. On longer voyages, migrating birds (such as the kohoperoa, or long-tailed cuckoo, which is well known on Samoa and Tonga and Raiatea and Tahiti and flies to New Zealand every October) could lead a Polynesian sailor to the island destination.
Every corner of the world has known island sailors, including Britain and Ireland and Iceland and the Mediterranean, as well as many South Asian and East Asian and African countries, and we sometimes score differences between them much too quickly. Seafarers everywhere share many of the same cognitive and cultural abilities—and an awareness of their fallibilities. Signs at sea are recognized by them all. James Cook, who learned much from Polynesian navigators during his three Pacific voyages (in the late 1760s and the 1770s), was successful because he brought his practices into line with their knowledge. Seagoing indicators similar to those the Polynesians relied on would have carried the Phoenicians across the Mediterranean and the Vikings to Iceland and the Amerindians to Jamaica. What distinguished each of these seafaring traditions was how they used the universal signs at sea to set their course. For any navigator, it is never just a matter of noticing signs. Like trackers in the desert or readers in the library, they need to interpret these signs—and the ways of interpretation, like the scripts of different languages, vary widely and need to be learned in different locations and different cultures. Furthermore, navigational directions are always relative rather than absolute, like sounds in a word or words in a sentence; and as with languages, these relationships are specific to each situation. So navigators would need to remember the movements of the signs (the “words” of their watery worlds) and the relationships between them (their “grammar” and “syntax”). “All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another,” said the Egyptian-Roman philosopher Plotinus in the third century CE, writing about what he called “the non-discursiveness of the intelligible world.”
The Polynesians knew that the ocean was full of signs, and they knew how to interpret one thing from another at sea. To do this, their memories would have been finely tuned, often aided by mnemonic devices such as knotted strings. And stories and songs played a part in this remembering. Rua-nui, described as a “clever old Tahitian woman, then bent with age and eyes dim,” in 1818 recited the following account of the birth of the heavenly bodies. It provided not only a genealogy but also a geography of the skies, and began: “Rua-tupua-nui (source-of-great-growth) was the origin; when he took to wife Atea-t’ao-nui (vast-expanse-of-great-bidding), there were born his princes, Shooting-stars; then followed the Moon; then followed the Sun; then followed the Comets; then followed Fa’a-iti (Little Valley / [i.e., the constellation] Perseus), Fa’a-nui (Great Valley / Auriga), and Fa’a-tapotupotu (Open Valley / Gemini), in King Clear-open-sky, which constellations are all in the North.
“Fa’a-nui (Auriga) dwelt with his wife Tahi-ari’i (Unique Sovereign / Capella in Auriga), and begat his prince Ta’urua (Great Festivity / Venus), who runs in the evening, and who heralds the night and the day, the stars, the moon, and the sun, as a compass to guide Hiro’s ship at sea [Hiro was a Polynesian god who, like the Greek Hermes, specialized in trickery]. And there followed Ta’ero (Bacchus or Mercury), by the sun.
“Ta’urua (Great Venus) prepared his canoe, Mata-taui-noa (Continually-changing-face), and sailed along the west, to King South, and dwelt with his wife Rua-o-mere (cavern-of-parental-yearnings / Capricorn), the compass that stands on the southern side of the sky.”
At night, when stars (and planets) were the most important indicator for a Polynesian sailor and were followed closely, each in turn would be replaced by another “guide star” when one rose too high or went below the horizon. Stars were like the songlines of the Aborigines in Australia. Not all stars, of course, were to be counted on. Some were known to be tricksters or troublemakers or just plain trivial; and contemporary navigators from the island of Anuta, between the Solomon and Fijian archipelagoes, still refer to stars in the major constellations as “carriers,” while unnamed stars are called “common” or “foolish.” Knowledge of the night sky was detailed, and laced together with lyric, narrative, and dramatic anecdotes of both natural and supernatural presences, with traits that many of us would recognize from the melodrama of Mediterranean and Scandinavian mythology. A Samoan celestial catalog, for example, not only described red-faced Mata-memea (Mars) but also slow-goer Telengese (Sirius) and the balance-pole Amonga (Orion’s Belt)—all of which showed the way for voyagers traveling from Samoa to Tonga. Cloudy weather or fog could of course interfere, but in most of the Central and South Pacific the visibility is exceptionally clear and cloud coverage limited to a few months. The early European explorers all confirmed this, and recent reports from the region suggest that clear skies can be expected at least two thirds of the year, with certain stars visible almost every night.
So even without the ability to determine east or west longitude (a disability shared with Europeans until the eighteenth century), Polynesians had techniques as trustworthy as those of the Europeans for determining direction. Also, exact navigation was not always necessary when islands were indicated by the character of currents and clouds, the movement of fish and birds, the sight and smell of drifting plants and leaves, and the keen eyes of seafarers (especially useful just before sunrise and just after sunset, when land is most easily spotted). And indeed, the same approximation was standard for European sailors during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when both nautical charts and navigation involved estimates, and when no sailor relying on them could ever be sure precisely where he was, much less where the island he was looking for might be.
All navigators are storytellers as well as wayfinders, reading and interpreting both natural and man-made signs; and knowledge of these signs, passed down from generation to generation, has always been a crucial part of a navigational heritage. The principle is the same everywhere, though the medium may differ. Seafarers have relied on such songs and stories to tell them where—and sometimes why—to go and how to get there, taking them along on their voyages in memory or aided by drawings or knotted strings or manuscripts, or by ship’s logs and sailor’s journals. The best guide for navigation worldwide has often been the latest story told by those who have traveled that way before—after all, if they hadn’t found a way, they wouldn’t be telling the story.
Polynesians made their way by the quality of their attention to their stories as well as to the sea; and that attention had to be exquisitely focused. Order and relationship are everything at sea, and songs and stories guided them through as surely as the stars.
A traditional chant from Raiatea, near Tahiti, shows the detailed geographical knowledge of people in the South Pacific; it speaks of islands that are part of the Society Islands, the Tuamotu Archipelago, and the Marquesas Islands, as well as Hawaii. Such a song would have provided navigational direction as surely as a European nautical chart.
Let more land grow from Havai[k]i! [Often identified with Raiatea, an island in French Polynesia and the legendary birthplace of the Polynesian people.] Spica is the star, and Aeuere is the king of Havai[k]i, the birthplace of lands.
The morning Apparition rides upon the flying vapour, that rises from the chilly moisture.
Bear thou on! Bear on and strike where? Strike upon the Sea-of-rank-odour in the borders of the
