Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [12]
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POLYNESIAN VOYAGERS
To ancient Polynesians, the Pacific Ocean was a passageway, not a barrier, and the islands it contained were connected, not isolated. Sailing double-hulled canoes fashioned without the benefit of metals, they settled an immense continent consisting largely of water. Sometime between AD 300 and 600, they made their longest journey yet and discovered the Hawaiian Islands. This would mark the northern reach of their migrations, which were so astounding that Captain Cook – the first Western explorer to take their full measure – could not conceive of how they did it, settling ‘every quarter of the Pacific Ocean’ and becoming ‘by far the most extensive nation upon earth.’
Almost nothing is known about the first wave of Polynesians (likely from the Marquesas Islands) who settled Hawai‘i except that the archaeological record shows that they were here. A second wave of Polynesians from the Tahitian Islands began arriving around AD 1000, and they conquered the first peoples and obliterated nearly all traces of their history and culture. Later Hawaiian legends of the menehune – an ancient race of little people who mysteriously built temples and great stoneworks overnight – may in fact refer to these original inhabitants.
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Well designed, succinct and informative, Hawaii History.org (www.hawaiihistory.org) is an interactive timeline of Hawaii’s history that makes it easy to browse quickly or delve deeply into events, with lots of links.
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For 300 years, regular voyaging occurred between Polynesia and Hawai‘i, and Polynesians brought to the islands their religious beliefs, social structures and over two dozen food plants and domestic animals. But what they didn’t possess is equally remarkable: no metals, no alphabet or written language, no wheel, no clay to make pottery. In Hawai‘i, the second wave of Polynesians called themselves Kanaka Maoli, or ‘the People.’ When, for reasons unknown, cross-Pacific voyaging stopped completely around 1300, Kanaka Maoli developed the unique culture endemic to the islands of Hawaii.
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ANCIENT HAWAI’I
Evolving in isolation, Hawaiian culture retained a family resemblance to others in Polynesia, which all bear striking similarities to ancient Greek and Norse traditions: Hawai‘i’s highly stratified society was run by chiefs (ali’i) whose right to rule was based on their hereditary lineage to the gods. Clan loyalties trumped expressions of individuality, elaborate traditions of gifting and feasting conferred prestige, and an extremely humanlike pantheon of gods inhabited the natural world.
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VOYAGING AMONG THE STARS
In 1976, the 62ft double-hulled canoe Hokule’a, a reproduction of an ancient Hawaiian long-distance sailing vessel, set off to do what no one had done in over 600 years: sail 2400 miles to Tahiti without benefit of radar or compass, satellites or sextant.
Hokule’a’s Micronesian navigator, Mau Piailug, wasn’t without tools. He knew how to use horizon or zenith stars – those that always rose over known islands – as a guide, then evaluate currents, winds, landmarks and time in a complex system of dead reckoning to stay on course. In the mind’s eye, the trick is to hold the canoe still in relation to the stars while the island sails toward you. In ancient times, Hawai‘i’s horizon star was called Hokule’a, the Star of Gladness.
After 33 days at sea, Hokule’a reached its destination, where it was greeted by 20,000 Tahitians. This historic achievement swelled all Polynesians with pride and led to a new appreciation and interest in Polynesian and Hawaiian cultures.
Hokule’a and the Polynesian Voyaging Society (http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu) have been sailing by the stars ever since. They made a second Tahitian voyage in 1980 – with Hawaiian Nainoa Thompson, who apprenticed under Piailug, as Hokule’a’s master navigator – followed by six more throughout Polynesia and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The most recent voyage was a five-month, 9500-mile trip to Micronesia and Japan in 2007.