Tautai

Wayfinding:  is a term related to navigation and how our people used celestial bodies and the natural environment around them to determine which way to go in their voyages.

As an example:  from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti ~

As you cross the Equator, the constellation known as the Southern Cross is used along with Meridian pairs known as: Mirzam and Canis Major, Canopis and Carina - which there becomes an imaginary line that runs perpendicular with the ocean to create a point of destination.  Through this line, an imaginary line is cut through the center of the deck which maintains the course for heading to Tahiti.

During daylight hours, look at the clouds.  When the clouds change to a brownish hue, this indicates land in which the clouds are reflecting.  Migratory birds can also be observed heading toward the island.

The Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded in 1973 to prove that ancient Polynesians truly meant to settle the islands in which they have settled.  They set out to prove that the Polynesian Wayfinding truly works without modern navigation tools.

Since 1975 the Hokulea has been around the world without navigational technology.

Today, they are discovering that Polynesians had gone even further than the Pacific, of Polynesian Triangle and the one pristine wildlife area off the coast of California is surfacing evidence in an underground site, of Polynesian seafaring.

Channel Islands show evidence of an ancient seafaring culture which resemble Polynesian artifacts.  This also coincides with seafarers of South America.

Researchers find that the exodus across the Bering Strait was not the first wave of migration into the continent of North America about 10,000 years ago, but that evidence shows that Polynesians had already settled the land some 2000 years prior to that.  If this is found to be true, it would imply that Polynesians were indeed the worldʻs greatest mariners of all time, with no equal in human history.

Kahala Lei

copyright, August 2019