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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today we've

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Speaker 1: got an episode for you from the vault. This is

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Speaker 1: part one of our series on Pacific Island navigation, which

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Speaker 1: originally aired July seven. This was a really fun series.

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Speaker 1: Uh my mind was was truly expanded by the stuff

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Speaker 1: we read for this episode. Uh so we hope you

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Speaker 1: enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: for a couple of episodes, maybe more. We're not sure

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Speaker 1: how these things ultimately fall together, but we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking about how humans discovered and ultimately colonized the Polynesian Islands,

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Speaker 1: places we know today as uh the Islands of Hawaii,

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Speaker 1: Easter Island, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Fiji,

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Speaker 1: uh Tuvalu, and more so in our in our information

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Speaker 1: and intercontinental travel age. Though I feel like these names

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Speaker 1: may seem very familiar and known, even though they might

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Speaker 1: be places that we also paradoxically know are very far away.

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Speaker 1: From us. We may know that they are, in many cases,

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Speaker 1: you know, vastly separated from other islands. But just because

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Speaker 1: we can pull up pictures of them, just because we know,

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Speaker 1: we could book a flight to one of these if

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Speaker 1: we so desired, Uh, they may seem closer, they may

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Speaker 1: see the world may seem smaller than it actually is.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's a very limited way of imagining what

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Speaker 1: planet Earth is where you know, you say, okay, somebody

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Speaker 1: picture the Earth, and and what do people picture. I

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Speaker 1: think they probably picture looking down at some continental part

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Speaker 1: of the Earth, maybe seeing mountain ranges, maybe seeing the

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Speaker 1: Sahara Dessert or something. But often people picture land, right,

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Speaker 1: they picture the continents. But if you look at Earth

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Speaker 1: from space, what it's really characterized by his ocean. Ocean

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Speaker 1: covers most of the Earth's surface, and there's one ocean

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Speaker 1: in particular that really takes the cake. It's the Pacific Ocean. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but but I definitely wanted to drive home just how

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Speaker 1: large the territories we're talking about here, and we're when

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the colonization of this region, we're not

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Speaker 1: talking about European colonization. We're talking about the original human

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Speaker 1: sailors who departed from Asia and gradually settled the remainder

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Speaker 1: of the world, uh, setting off into the unknown. But

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Speaker 1: then also depending on navigation, some really fascinating navigation techniques

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Speaker 1: that we'll get into in order to uh to to

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Speaker 1: chart this region. So yeah, when you look at at

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Speaker 1: a map of the globe, it depends on how you're

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Speaker 1: looking at it. Right, If you're you're taking a very

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Speaker 1: um uh, North America centric version and a very North

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Speaker 1: America centric globe, you're like, all right, there's the Earth,

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Speaker 1: it's mostly US, it's mostly North America. But you turn

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Speaker 1: it around, you uh, you turn it to the Pacific side,

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Speaker 1: and you're looking at a water world, a true water world.

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Speaker 1: You're you're looking at a side of the globe that

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Speaker 1: is almost all Pacific Ocean. Because the Pacific Ocean is

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Speaker 1: just simply enormous. It's the largest and the deepest averse oceans.

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Speaker 1: We're talking sixty three million, eight hundred thousand square miles,

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Speaker 1: that's approximately a hundred and sixty five million, two hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty thousand square kilometers, and it takes up one

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Speaker 1: third of Earth's surface or thirty percent of it, depending

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Speaker 1: on who's doing the calculation. It contains the deepest parts

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Speaker 1: of the oceans, and it contains more than half of

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Speaker 1: the world's open water supply. Specifically within the realm of

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Speaker 1: of Polynesia and Micronesia, these these subdivisions of parts of Oceania,

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Speaker 1: which is the you know, the region of the Pacific

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Speaker 1: containing the Pacific Islands where people live, um there in

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Speaker 1: this part of the world. There's an author named David

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Speaker 1: Lewis whose book I'm going to refer to throughout these episodes.

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Speaker 1: But there's a part of his book where he says

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Speaker 1: that if you exclude New Zealand, within Polynesia and Micronesia,

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Speaker 1: there are two parts land to every one thousand parts water.

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Speaker 1: Uh So this is this is an area characterized almost

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Speaker 1: entirely by water, but polka dotted with these little hubs

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Speaker 1: of land throughout. Yeah, various far flung islands that people

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Speaker 1: were able to to eventually colonize and and and make

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Speaker 1: their home. And it's yeah, it's it's fascinating. How again,

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Speaker 1: I've I've been to I've been fortunate enough to travel

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Speaker 1: to you know, say that some of the Hawaiian islands

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Speaker 1: and you get there and you know, they're they're amazing

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Speaker 1: But but like, I don't have the experience of of

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Speaker 1: just the open Pacific, of of the of the many places,

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Speaker 1: the majority of the places in the Pacific Ocean where

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Speaker 1: there is no side of land, where there is only

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Speaker 1: the open water. Now, you don't have to be deep

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Speaker 1: into historical theories of human migration to grasp the question

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Speaker 1: of like looking at all these islands in the Pacific,

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Speaker 1: seeing how far away they are from each other, how

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Speaker 1: how small a percent of the area of the Pacific

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Speaker 1: Ocean the islands represent, and notice how many of them

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Speaker 1: are populated by people, and wonder, how on earth did

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Speaker 1: that happen? How did people find and settle on all

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Speaker 1: of these tiny islands in this vast ocean. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's a fascinating question one that one that we're

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Speaker 1: still exploring to this day. We're still figuring out. But

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be getting in a little bit more into

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Speaker 1: the history of it and certainly into the navigational techniques

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Speaker 1: the amazing ways that these these ancient sailors made their

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Speaker 1: way across the open ocean. But first of all, let's

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Speaker 1: let's go ahead and just drive home that while while

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Speaker 1: human colonization of the Pacific Islands is one of the

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Speaker 1: most recent human migration movements in our history. It still retains,

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Speaker 1: you know, more than a few mysteries and using everything

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Speaker 1: from traditional histories and linguistic analysis to climate models and genetics,

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Speaker 1: researchers are still continuing to try and figure out exactly

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Speaker 1: how this migration occurred, when it occurred, where, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: where where we went where humans migrated to first in

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Speaker 1: this and so we're going to be dealing with some

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Speaker 1: tentative dates here as we we roll through, like the

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Speaker 1: basic story of human migration across the Pacific. So, according

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Speaker 1: to Linda Noreene Schaefer in Maritime Southeast Asia to five hundred,

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Speaker 1: this was a book that came out in the ancestors

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Speaker 1: of Maleo Polynesians left the mainland to settle Um the

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Speaker 1: island of Taiwan around four thousand BC, and from there

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Speaker 1: they moved into what is now the Philippines and Indonesia,

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Speaker 1: and then during the third millennium BC, they moved on

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Speaker 1: to settle the islands uh And and Peninsula peninsulas of

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Speaker 1: what Schaefer refers to as Southeast Asia's maritime realm, and

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Speaker 1: the people who remained there came to be known as

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Speaker 1: the Malays. So from here we see movement of the

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Speaker 1: aim people's further out into the Ocean UH, the very

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Speaker 1: movement of human migration that would eventually become the Polynesians.

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Speaker 1: By fifteen hundred b C. They had reached as far

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Speaker 1: as the Bismarck Archipelago north east of New Guinea and

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Speaker 1: Um and Schaefer rights that within a few centuries they

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Speaker 1: had spread to West Polynesia that's Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and

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Speaker 1: Polynesian sailors, explorers and colonists continued and eventually they're eventually

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Speaker 1: reached and colonized the far more remote eastward islands of Hawaii,

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Speaker 1: UM what is now New Zealand, and what we have

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Speaker 1: also come to refer to as Easter Island or Rapa Nui.

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Speaker 1: All right, so now let's try and put some dates

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Speaker 1: on all of this. But of course all of this

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Speaker 1: is UH is playing out over a long period of time,

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Speaker 1: and it's still an area of ongoing study and discussion,

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Speaker 1: So these dates are tended. In schaefer work, Some of

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Speaker 1: the estimated dates she sites include Rapa Nui around five

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Speaker 1: hundred CE, although estimates seem I've seen estimates that suggest

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Speaker 1: as early as three hundred c E. And then uh

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Speaker 1: in ninete, the University of Hawaii's Dennis um Kawajarada suggested

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Speaker 1: the following dates. He says, Okay, hundreds and gathers inhabited

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Speaker 1: Australia and New Guinea by fifty thousand years ago, and

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Speaker 1: then around the between sixteen hundred and twelve hundred b

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Speaker 1: c E. A cultural complex called Lapita had spread from

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Speaker 1: New Guinea in Melanesia to as far east as Fiji, Samoa,

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Speaker 1: and Tonga, and then Polynesian culture developed at the eastern

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Speaker 1: edge of this region. And then he says that around

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Speaker 1: three hundred b C. Or earlier, seafares from Samoa and

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Speaker 1: Tonga discovered and settled islands to the east what are

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Speaker 1: known now it's the Cook Islands, uh Tahiti, Nui, uh To,

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Speaker 1: Omotos and Hiva. And then around three hundred sea or earlier,

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Speaker 1: voyagers from central or eastern Polynesia discovered in settled eastern island,

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Speaker 1: and then around four hundred sea or earlier, voyagers from

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Speaker 1: the Cook Islands Tahiti, Nua and or He settled Hawaii.

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Speaker 1: And then around one thousand CE or earlier, he wrote

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Speaker 1: that the voyagers from the Society Islands and or the

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Speaker 1: Cook Islands settled what is now in New Zealand. Now again,

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Speaker 1: these are just tentative dates. Um. There. You know, there's

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Speaker 1: been a lot of other work. For instance, according to

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Speaker 1: the University of Hawaii at Manoa anthropologist Terry Hunt, and

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Speaker 1: this is via Hokalua dot com, which will refer back

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Speaker 1: to that website some more in the future. Uh. They

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Speaker 1: were part of a radio carbon study looking at artifacts

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Speaker 1: from the island and they adjusted some of the suggested

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Speaker 1: timelines based on that work, ultimately arguing for a more

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Speaker 1: rapid and recent colonization of the outer islands. Specifically, he

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Speaker 1: proposed Samoa around eight hundred b c e, the Central

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Speaker 1: Society Islands between ten and eleven twenty, and dispersal into

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Speaker 1: New Zealand, Hawaii and Rapa Nui in other locations between

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Speaker 1: eleven ninety and twelve nineties. Um, and I've seen twelve

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Speaker 1: hundred CE is sometimes cited as the most recent possibilit

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Speaker 1: pity for Rappa Newly colonization. And so yeah, I know

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Speaker 1: we're hitting every one of a lot of dates here.

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Speaker 1: I highly suggest going out on your own and finding

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Speaker 1: some of these sources and pouring over them in more

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Speaker 1: detail if you want to get get a clear picture

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Speaker 1: of how this is going. There are also some wonderful

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Speaker 1: visual aids depicting uh, you know, exactly how these waves

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Speaker 1: of migration might have looked UH. And I'm always fascinated

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Speaker 1: by those uh even though they you know, they often change. Again,

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Speaker 1: they're subject to the same uh level of change that

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Speaker 1: we see with some of the possible dates for arrivals

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Speaker 1: and colonizations, etcetera. And again, it's a very exciting area

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Speaker 1: of study, and you'll you'll see papers arguing for the

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Speaker 1: for for other things as well, the likes of South

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Speaker 1: American and even Antarctic contact by various Polynesian people, UM

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Speaker 1: and UH. And I it's my understanding I didn't go

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Speaker 1: deep into some of those. I think some of those

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Speaker 1: are are kind of controversial or some of them and

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Speaker 1: certainly some of the evidence is maybe not as as solid.

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Speaker 1: But it just to give you an idea of where

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Speaker 1: some of the research is going today and what people

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Speaker 1: are looking at. UM. Regardless of the exact dates, you know,

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Speaker 1: we can't discount the wonder and accomplishment of the whole scenario.

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Speaker 1: You know that this This was this last age of

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Speaker 1: true human um exodus, true human discovery and colonization, visiting

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Speaker 1: places that humans had never been before, creating a foothold

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Speaker 1: of human civilization in places that had belonged only um,

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Speaker 1: you know, to various animals before, in the case of

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Speaker 1: the Laggan Islands, places where the no mammals had ever

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Speaker 1: arrived there, that had not flown or swam through the seas.

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Speaker 1: You know that you had to have been a bat

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Speaker 1: or a seal. I want to read a quote from

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Speaker 1: from the University of Hawaii's Dennis Colorada here for which

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Speaker 1: he he really sums a lot of this up um.

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Speaker 1: And again this is from there. That um hoku lea

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Speaker 1: website at hokal dot com. That's h o k u

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Speaker 1: l e a dot com. Uh, he writes quote. The

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Speaker 1: Polynesian migration to Whai was part of one of the

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Speaker 1: most remarkable achievements of humanity, the discovery and settlement of

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Speaker 1: the remote, widely scattered islands of the Central Pacific. The

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Speaker 1: migration began before the birth of Christ, while Europeans were

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Speaker 1: sailing close to the coastlines of continents before developing navigational

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Speaker 1: instruments that would allow them to venture out into the

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Speaker 1: open ocean. Voyagers from Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa began to

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Speaker 1: settle islands in an ocean area of over ten million

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Speaker 1: square miles. The settlement took a thousand years to complete

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Speaker 1: and involve finding and fixing in mind the position of

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Speaker 1: islands sometimes less than a mile in diameter, on on

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Speaker 1: which the highest landmark was a coconut tree. By the

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Speaker 1: time European explorers into the Pacific Ocean in the sixteenth century,

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Speaker 1: almost all the habitable islands had been settled for hundreds

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Speaker 1: of years. It's truly remarkable. Yeah, especially when you, I

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Speaker 1: mean you get beyond the exact timelines and you start

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Speaker 1: looking at how they traveled and how they navigated, UM,

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Speaker 1: and what these islands were like when they found them. Uh,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be you know, we're gonna get into more

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Speaker 1: into the navigation models UM, either later in this episode

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Speaker 1: or in the next. But as Calahorada points out, what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about voyages conducted entirely in canoes made from

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Speaker 1: wood and coconut fiber, constructed with tools made from bone,

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Speaker 1: rock and coral. They use sails woven from coconut or

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Speaker 1: or pandana sleeves, and when no win was available, they paddled.

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Speaker 1: And these were dangerous voyages as well, not only at

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Speaker 1: open sea, but when you arrived on some of these places,

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Speaker 1: it's easy to imagine this sort of stereotypical like Paradise Island. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know vision where Okay, you've reached the island, the

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Speaker 1: dangerous part is done. Now you're in this place. It's

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Speaker 1: lush and full of life, but that's not really when

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Speaker 1: you get there. Yeah, like there's gonna be you know,

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Speaker 1: a bunch of animals ready for the picking, and you know,

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Speaker 1: there there. If you get into specifics, there are some

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Speaker 1: cases where there's some sort of of of of of

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Speaker 1: of natural, naturally occurring animal on that island or the

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Speaker 1: waters around it that are perhaps easier pickings. But in

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Speaker 1: other bass you're dealing with environments where again, like they're

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Speaker 1: they're just no mammals, there are no large meaty birds.

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Speaker 1: Uh you know, they're they're desolate, they're played. In some cases,

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Speaker 1: there was very difficult for humans to you know, find

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Speaker 1: the resources they needed to survive, unless they of course

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Speaker 1: brought them with them on voyages, which adds this other

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Speaker 1: wrinkle to these to these voyages, that you would have

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Speaker 1: to bring things like pigs, chickens, et cetera. So at

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Speaker 1: the same time, I want to drive home that there's

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Speaker 1: no one island environment here. There's a wide variety in

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Speaker 1: the sorts of islands and island environments you encounter across

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Speaker 1: this vast region. Uh So the story is gonna be

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Speaker 1: a little different each time. So again, in many cases

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Speaker 1: they had to bring important plant or animal species with them,

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Speaker 1: which of course is the same story you see in

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Speaker 1: land based migration, except with the challenges of an open boat.

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Speaker 1: And so you'd end up with this first wave of

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Speaker 1: invasive species on the island. And these are often called

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Speaker 1: canoe plants and canoe animals because again that's how they

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Speaker 1: reach their destinations. And ultimately we're talking daw pigs, chickens,

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Speaker 1: but also plants such as sugarcane, banana, coconut, taro, and

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Speaker 1: bad boot. So some of these plants that are so

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Speaker 1: you know, linked in the mind and linked culturally to

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Speaker 1: these islands, that you have to remind yourself that they

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Speaker 1: were not always there. They were brought with them with

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Speaker 1: the people who settled these islands. Yeah, though personally right

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Speaker 1: now my mind is fixated on the idea of having

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Speaker 1: to make long sea voyages with like a canoe full

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Speaker 1: of chickens. Yeah, but it it was done. And uh,

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Speaker 1: and as we'll get into much later, you know, in

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Speaker 1: order to prove that these voyages were possible, they had

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Speaker 1: to do things like bringing animals with them on the

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Speaker 1: test voyages. So uh, it's it's fascinating now on this

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Speaker 1: topic of of the the environments on these different islands

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Speaker 1: and how they weren't fully stocked life nourishing buffets. I

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Speaker 1: thought that that David Lewis made an excellent point in

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Speaker 1: that book that you you mentioned briefly earlier. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: So to name this book, I'm gonna be referring to

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Speaker 1: it throughout these episodes. It's one I've been reading that

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Speaker 1: is a seminal work in the history of studies of

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Speaker 1: Pacific island navigation. And this was originally published by the

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Speaker 1: University of Hawaii Press in nineteen seventy two. It was

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Speaker 1: by a medical doctor, sailor and scholar named David Lewis,

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Speaker 1: and it's called We the Navigators, The Ancient Art of

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Speaker 1: Land Finding in the Pacific. I was published in seventy two,

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Speaker 1: but I think updated with some subsequent editions at least

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Speaker 1: in nineteen nine, and it may have gone through other

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Speaker 1: editions since then. But this is a really interesting book

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Speaker 1: because its studies traditional Pacific navigation and land finding techniques,

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Speaker 1: not just by the the indirect evidence of trying to

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Speaker 1: like look at the history, but actually by putting them

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Speaker 1: to direct experiments, so navigating with experienced master navigators from

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Speaker 1: various Pacific islands and studying their techniques firsthand. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And and the point that that Lewis makes about the

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Speaker 1: stark environments was really neat because it meant that the

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Speaker 1: dangerous voyage to get to these islands and establish yourself

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Speaker 1: on these islands. You it didn't mean that you could stop.

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Speaker 1: In many cases, you would have to keep making voyages

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Speaker 1: because there were certain resources that you could not get

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Speaker 1: at the new island. But we're worth the dangerous journey

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Speaker 1: to acquire. Uh. The example that that Lewis brings up

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Speaker 1: is the lack of hard stone on the Cook Island

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Speaker 1: of Puka Puka, requiring journeys to take place uh two

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Speaker 1: islands where hard stone could be acquired for use in

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Speaker 1: vital tool construction. And he writes that these would have

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Speaker 1: been complex trading cycles that would have also been influenced by,

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Speaker 1: you know, other human factors like the sense of you know,

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Speaker 1: the desire for adventure, the um or, and also the

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Speaker 1: necessity of exile, which I found interesting, like ultimately the

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Speaker 1: idea of having a complex culture and cultural dynamics on

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Speaker 1: a single island. What what where do you send people?

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Speaker 1: Where do people run to? Uh? If if there if

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Speaker 1: there's some sort of political turmoil on the island, so

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Speaker 1: contact sometimes remains in place because of that as well. Now,

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Speaker 1: before we get into the specifics of of of navigation

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Speaker 1: in among Pacific islanders and the colonizing of Polynesia, I

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Speaker 1: thought we might briefly touch on some of the basics

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Speaker 1: of sailing and navigation, is larger trends and human technology. UM.

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Speaker 1: We could easily do a proper even multi episode invention

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Speaker 1: episode about ships. But here are some of the key

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Speaker 1: dates provided in the seventy grade Inventions of the Ancient

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Speaker 1: World by Brian Fagan at all um, a book I

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Speaker 1: refer to that I referred to a lot, uh because

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Speaker 1: it's really good and again highly recommend people pick up

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Speaker 1: a copy of it. UM. But Fagan and the various

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Speaker 1: co authors that he worked on with the various sailing

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Speaker 1: and ship based chapters points out that seagoing watercraft just

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Speaker 1: in general dates back probably before forty thousand b CE.

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Speaker 1: In Southeast Asia and Indonesia. We see longboats from Neanderthal

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Speaker 1: cultures from seventy two hundred b c E and we

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Speaker 1: see low graphs from seventh century BC and mess of Botania. Again,

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Speaker 1: these are just general dates based on some of the

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Speaker 1: earliest evidence we have. And then as far as things

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Speaker 1: like plank boats, and that goes back to like three

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Speaker 1: thousand BC in Egypt Um. And then finally we get

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Speaker 1: up to the frame first boats in the second and

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Speaker 1: third century CE in in my in what is now

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Speaker 1: all England. And as far as sailing, we have depictions

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Speaker 1: of sales from thirty one b C in Egypt. We

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Speaker 1: see two masted ships from sixth century in BC BC

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Speaker 1: in Egypt, and the oldest surviving sale comes from the

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Speaker 1: second century BC in Egypt. But again these are just

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Speaker 1: some of the oldest direct evidence that we have or depictions, descriptions, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: As Fagan points out in the section on navigation, with

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Speaker 1: Sean mcgrail, author of Boats of the World and professor

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Speaker 1: of Maritime archaeology. The earliest voyages for our ancestors would

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Speaker 1: have remained within sight of land. Landmarks and sea marks

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Speaker 1: would have been key to navigation. And we see this

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Speaker 1: reflected in record did traditions and classical and medieval sailing manuals.

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Speaker 1: Makes sense, right, I mean it's like if if any

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Speaker 1: of us were to set out on a boat into

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Speaker 1: the water, I would want to keep land in sight.

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Speaker 1: I need to know where that land is. So all

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Speaker 1: of this early Uh, you know, oceanic activity would have

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Speaker 1: taken place withinside of land, and we depended upon things

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Speaker 1: you could notice on land. Uh. You know your frame

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Speaker 1: of reference. Reference was based on the place you came from. Sure,

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Speaker 1: but what happens when you leave side of land. Well,

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Speaker 1: by the mid second millennium BC, sailors in the South

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Speaker 1: Pacific were of course doing this by means of what

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Speaker 1: we call environmental navigation. We'll be getting into this at length. Uh,

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Speaker 1: but you know, at this point you have to travel

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Speaker 1: beyond dependence on coastal landmarks and sea marks. But that

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean that there's not an order and language to

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Speaker 1: the open ocean. And for those who had the wisdom

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Speaker 1: and the observational skills, of the accumulated knowledge of their ancestors.

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Speaker 1: They could plot their way by these queues, they could

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Speaker 1: recognize them, they could read them app of the ocean.

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Speaker 1: Now we'll get into the details of this in a bit,

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Speaker 1: but as Fagan and mcgrail point out, you'll find indirect

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Speaker 1: references to environmental navigation methodologies in Homer's the Odyssey as

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Speaker 1: well as in the medieval text of the Life of St. Brendan.

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Speaker 1: And environmental navigation would have been used in some form

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Speaker 1: worldwide by the first millennium CE, and that's when instruments

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Speaker 1: began to pop up. That's when we begin to use

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Speaker 1: these various technological things to help us, uh make our

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Speaker 1: way across the open water. But with the navigators of

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Speaker 1: the Pacific Islands, we're talking again about peak environmental navigation,

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Speaker 1: a level of advancement that exceeded anything else in the

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Speaker 1: rest of the world, anything else that the rest of

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Speaker 1: the world was capable of, or had been capable of,

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Speaker 1: um aweing some of the first Europeans to encounter such

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Speaker 1: techniques and for a while seeming simply impossible to some

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Speaker 1: Western minds. Uh, you know that, for for a while

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Speaker 1: it just seemed impossible that, oh, the people who are

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Speaker 1: you know, they live in these islands. They must be

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Speaker 1: here by accident, they must be here by mistake, and

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Speaker 1: they're merely survivors of the ocean. They're not masters of

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Speaker 1: its navigation. But as we'll get to they were. They

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Speaker 1: were the masters. That's exactly right, And that's actually one

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Speaker 1: of the main points that David Lewis makes in this book,

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Speaker 1: We the Navigators. Um. He was responding in some ways

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Speaker 1: to kind of trends in scholarship on the on the

395
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Speaker 1: settlement of the Pacific Islands that had tended to say that, well,

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Speaker 1: a large number of these islands must have just been

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Speaker 1: settled and discovered by accident, right, that maybe a fisherman

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Speaker 1: or traders were out at sea and they became lost,

399
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Speaker 1: they drifted off course, and just by happenstance they drifted

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Speaker 1: to new islands that hadn't been settled before, and then

401
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Speaker 1: having discovered them, those islands could be settled. Of course,

402
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Speaker 1: it is possible that some islands were discovered this way,

403
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Speaker 1: but Lewis pushes back, arguing that there's actually a pretty

404
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Speaker 1: good evidence for a a program of deliberate exploration and

405
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Speaker 1: very accurate navigation by the sailors of the time time

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Speaker 1: to to locate islands and settle them. So maybe actually

407
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Speaker 1: it's time to introduce this book more fully that I've

408
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Speaker 1: been reading, because I wanted to mention a number of

409
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 1: things that he talks about in it. So again, the

410
00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 1: book is called We the Navigators, The Ancient Art of

411
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Speaker 1: Land Finding in the Pacific. It was first published in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, and the author, David Lewis, was, as

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Speaker 1: I said, he was a medical doctor. He was an

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Speaker 1: experienced amateur sailor, so he had participated in like you know,

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Speaker 1: yacht races and things like that, and a scholar. He

416
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Speaker 1: was born in England, but he was raised in New

417
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Speaker 1: Zealand and Rahirotonga in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific.

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Speaker 1: And Lewis had been a sailing and kayaking enthusiast for

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Speaker 1: much of his life. He had done some competitive sailing,

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Speaker 1: including a Transatlantic single handed yacht race in nineteen sixty

421
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Speaker 1: and at least one circumnavigation of the globe in a catamaran,

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Speaker 1: and inspired by his experiences with long sea voyages in

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Speaker 1: small boats and his love of Polynesian culture since his childhood,

424
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Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, he got a grant from Australian

425
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Speaker 1: National University to study traditional Polynesian navigation techniques that did

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Speaker 1: not rely on charts or scientific instruments. And he did

427
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:18,679
Speaker 1: this research by learning directly from several older Polynesian sailors

428
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 1: and master navigators, experimenting firsthand with voyages across the Pacific

429
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,239
Speaker 1: with these navigators at the helm or experimenting with what

430
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:30,400
Speaker 1: they taught him. And so there are three basic sources

431
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:34,360
Speaker 1: of non documentary information that he talks about. So one

432
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 1: is shore based instruction on ancient navigation techniques from knowledgeable

433
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: navigators in the Carolinians, the Santa cruz Reef Islanders and

434
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 1: two groups of Tucopeans uh Niningo Islanders, Gilbert E's and Tongans.

435
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:54,679
Speaker 1: And then he also gets instruction during navigation itself on

436
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: his yacht known as the Ispjorn, which is under the

437
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:01,359
Speaker 1: command of two older mass Ster navigators who helped him

438
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:03,960
Speaker 1: with his research. One is a man named Tivak of

439
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 1: the Santa cruz Reef Islands and another is named Hippo

440
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 1: Or of Pula Watt in the Carolines. And I like

441
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 1: the approach here because actually uh he opens his book

442
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:18,919
Speaker 1: by talking about the fact that understanding indigenous navigation of

443
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 1: the Pacific has been really held back by what he

444
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: calls an overly theoretical approach. Uh, you know, just people

445
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:30,119
Speaker 1: trying to, uh look at indirect evidence to understand how

446
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:34,439
Speaker 1: the navigation happened, rather than doing firsthand voyages with the

447
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: navigators themselves. Yeah, actually diving into the accumulated knowledge of

448
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: these cultures on navigation in some cases. So there's a

449
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 1: lot of interesting stuff about this book. One of the

450
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: interesting things he mentions early on is he says when

451
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 1: he was growing up in Polynesia, he says to his

452
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 1: elder Polynesian cousins, Uh, the ocean quote was a homely

453
00:25:55,840 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: and not unfriendly place. And that's interesting because it, I mean, obviously,

454
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:04,119
Speaker 1: as a land lubber like me thinks the idea of

455
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: voyaging out on the ocean in a canoe is like

456
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:11,120
Speaker 1: inherently just sounds terrifying, right, But to some extent that

457
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 1: is cultural. That's like, because I'm not used to the

458
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:16,959
Speaker 1: idea and to people that have a culture of of

459
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 1: long ocean voyages in small watercraft like these canoes and catamarans. Uh,

460
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 1: It's it's not necessarily such a scary thing. I mean,

461
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:28,119
Speaker 1: of course, ocean voyages do always involve dangers, but under

462
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 1: the guidance of these long tested, ancient navigational techniques, if

463
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,120
Speaker 1: you know what you're doing and you know where you're going,

464
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: it is actually not necessarily a scary thing to do.

465
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: In fact, it could be a sort of joyful part

466
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 1: of your culture. But on the other hand, thinking about

467
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 1: the ocean as a homely and not unfriendly place, this

468
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: might cause you to assume that spending a lot of

469
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: time at sea would would make ancient Pacific islanders have

470
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: a kind of intuitive feel for ocean navigation that couldn't

471
00:26:58,280 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: be put into words the same way that you have

472
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 1: for a lot of skills you have. You know, there

473
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 1: are a lot of things that if you do them

474
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: enough and you get good at them, you know what

475
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 1: to do and you can do it well. But you

476
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: couldn't necessarily explain to somebody else why you're doing what

477
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 1: you're doing. But Lewis strongly resists this type of characterization

478
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: about Pacific island navigation. He says it's in fact the

479
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:24,399
Speaker 1: exact opposite. He writes, quote one further notable feature of

480
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: what we were told and had shown to us was

481
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: that never once did anyone lay claim to any form

482
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 1: of quote sixth cents. A navigator had reason to believe

483
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: that land lay over the horizon because he had observed

484
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 1: certain signs that told him so, not on account of

485
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 1: some vague intuition. And I think this is a really

486
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: important point to hammer home about how ancient Pacific island

487
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: navigation worked. It wasn't that you've got a feel for

488
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: it and then you just instinctively knew what to do.

489
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 1: It was based on knowledge and well calibrated external signs,

490
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 1: And so I think that means it it probably makes

491
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:04,440
Speaker 1: more sense to think of ancient Pacific navigation as more

492
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: of a science than an art. You're not just getting

493
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: a feel for things and relying on your intuition, but

494
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: referencing specific markers and indicators of your position, though these

495
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: markers might be mostly invisible to people who didn't know

496
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,640
Speaker 1: exactly what to look for. Yeah, I mean it makes

497
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 1: sense right the science, that you would need the science

498
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: to get there, because that the the ocean is ultimately unforgiving.

499
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: You know, if you were just going on a gut instinct,

500
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: you might you might be right some of the time,

501
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 1: but if you get it really wrong once then you

502
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: might not be coming back to shore exactly, and that

503
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: really comes through in studying these techniques. It is based

504
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:46,239
Speaker 1: on specific markers, specific pieces of knowledge, specific cues in

505
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: the environment, and a major point of of Lewis's book

506
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: is how accurate these specific techniques and external markers were

507
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: in the hands of a master Pacific navigator who knew

508
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: what they were doing UH. He writes that navigators of

509
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: Polynesia and Micronesia seem to employ basically all of the

510
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: same techniques with only slight variations. He says the only

511
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: major differences were the features of local geography, because a

512
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 1: lot of these UM methods of navigation do rely on

513
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: knowing where specific islands in the area you're navigating are,

514
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: so that would be different depending on what island groups

515
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 1: you're sailing between. But otherwise the techniques are extremely similar,

516
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: and he says that throughout Polynesia and Micronesia, he said

517
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: that the techniques were employed basically with the same level

518
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:37,479
Speaker 1: of effectiveness, measured by the accuracy at landfall, which in

519
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: general was highly accurate, especially astonishingly accurate for not using

520
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: UH tools and equipment that are available to twentieth century navigators.

521
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: Than now. I wanted to come back to a fact

522
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,719
Speaker 1: I already mentioned once earlier, but it's this astonishing figure

523
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: that that Lewis gives talking about the world Old of

524
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 1: the Polynesians and the Micronesians, saying that they inhabit a

525
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: world of ocean. Again, if you exclude New Zealand, this

526
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: area of the globe has two parts land to every

527
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: one thousand parts water. And then he mentioned something about

528
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: this that I thought was really interesting. He writes, quote,

529
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: ocean spaces can inhibit contact, though terrestrial features like mountain

530
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: ranges may do so equally, but they become highways rather

531
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: than barriers as marine technology, especially navigation, becomes effective. I

532
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: had never thought about that before, but I think that

533
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. So you can have various barriers to

534
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: travel and communication between different regions and cultures. But whereas

535
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: a mountain on land is always a barrier, you know,

536
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 1: even if you build a road through it, the mountain

537
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 1: will still slow you down. You're making a road through

538
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: it just makes it sort of less of a barrier.

539
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: The ocean is something that can transition from a brick

540
00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:00,080
Speaker 1: wall to a super highway once you have the the

541
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: skill and the knowledge and the technology of to figure

542
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: out where you're going and how to get there, and

543
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: you have the right kind of watercraft, the ocean turns

544
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 1: into the most efficient method of travel in the world. Yeah,

545
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: that's an excellent point. Now, there's one thing that has

546
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: made studying Pacific islander navigation more difficult than it might

547
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: otherwise be, which is that in many of these societies,

548
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: or maybe all of them, and definitely most of them, Uh,

549
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: navigational lore seems to have been something that was often

550
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: kept secret and only shared with a small group of

551
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: initiated experts. So it wasn't just that everybody in a

552
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 1: in a Micronesian or Polynesian society knew how to navigate

553
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: on the open ocean, but that you would have sort

554
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 1: of a class of educated navigators who would have this

555
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: this lore about how to get from place to place

556
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: within their brains and would be passed on to the

557
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: next generation of navigators. But it wouldn't be general knowledge

558
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: that was shared by everyone. And that will make even

559
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: more sense as we'd get into some of the details

560
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: of say, navigating by stars and what that entailed, you

561
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: realize that this required specialized training and a specialized eye

562
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: and not everybody who's going to necessarily be cut out

563
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: for it, and it wouldn't make sense for everyone to

564
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: to invest this level of time and energy into the

565
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: understanding of it, right, And it's interesting. I don't know

566
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: exactly what all of the pressures leading to it being

567
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 1: a sort of specialized bit of of exclusive lore among

568
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: a special class of navigators would be. I mean, there

569
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 1: might have been economic concerns keeping it contained that way,

570
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: or it might have just been sort of you know,

571
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: the difficulty of training people to to have all of

572
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: this knowledge in their head. I'm not quite sure, but

573
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: that's an interesting question as well. Now there's another thing

574
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: that Lewis gets into in his book which I thought

575
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 1: was really interesting about Again, when you just look at

576
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: the problem of you look at a map of the

577
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: Pacific Ocean and you think, how could it be possible

578
00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 1: to navigate you know, these vast distances without you know,

579
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: modern scientific types of equipment or charts and that kind

580
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: of thing. And uh. And there is one aspect of

581
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: it that helps make the problem seem more comprehensible, and

582
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: it's this Lewis writes that it is possible, quote to

583
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 1: sail to almost all the inhabited islands of Oceania from

584
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia without once making a sea crossing longer than

585
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: three hundred and ten miles. The only exceptions are Easter Island,

586
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 1: Hawaii and New Zealand, though the most predictable routes between

587
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 1: Eastern and Western Polynesia are also long such isolated lands apart.

588
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: The majority of gaps between islands and even archipelagos are

589
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 1: well under three hundred and ten miles, and usually in

590
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 1: the fifty to two hundred mile range. Since no one

591
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 1: wants to cross more open ocean than necessary, it follows

592
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 1: that most passages were of this order. So if you

593
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: know your Pacific geography and you know where the islands

594
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: are and how to navigate to, the the problem of

595
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 1: crossing the vast ocean actually can sometimes be decomposed into

596
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 1: many smaller journeys between islands, and the vast Pacific ocean

597
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: problem can be broken up into a kind of stepping

598
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: stone pattern. However, this does not mean that ancient Pacific

599
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: islanders were incapable of longer sea voyages. They were not,

600
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: and sometimes they did make them. Now, coming back to

601
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 1: the idea that Lewis pushes back against that many of

602
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: the islands of the Pacific would have been settled initially

603
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: through random drifts of people who found new islands by

604
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: accident while drifting about after you know, becoming lost or

605
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,879
Speaker 1: something like that. Lewis pushes back against that, and one

606
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,400
Speaker 1: line of evidence he sites is computer simulations of human

607
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 1: spread and settlement through random drifts. He writes of this

608
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: subject quote, Contrary to expectations, the results showed that while

609
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:55,760
Speaker 1: accidental advent upon a number of island groups was likely,

610
00:34:56,120 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: drifts could not account for certain crucial contact stages. These

611
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: were virtually impossible except as exploratory probes and subsequent deliberately

612
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: mounted ventures. The probability of drifts occurring was negligible or

613
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: zero across the following seaways Western Melanesia to Fiji, Eastern

614
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: Polynesia to Hawaii, New Zealand, or Eastern Island Eastern Polynesian

615
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: contact with the America's in either direction, the probability of

616
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 1: their having been drifts from western to Eastern Polynesia, and

617
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: from Western Polynesia to the Marquesas zone was very low,

618
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: and so here Louis is arguing that not only were

619
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:37,240
Speaker 1: the navigators of the ancient Pacific islands able to travel

620
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: uh with with great accuracy between known islands and island groups.

621
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 1: That they also appear to have mounted these deliberate, intentional

622
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: exploratory ventures into new waters to find islands that had

623
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: not yet been discovered, and of course, in doing so,

624
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: would have the knowledge to be able to locate these

625
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 1: islands again upon you know, going back home and then returning,

626
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:04,800
Speaker 1: which again is astounding. Yeah, yeah, simply astounding. And I

627
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 1: think a lot of these the counter ideas, the ideas, yeah,

628
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:10,799
Speaker 1: that that these had to be accidents, these you know,

629
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 1: these people, that people could possibly have set out and

630
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 1: discovered these I mean, it's such a I guess a

631
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 1: landsman approach, you know, based on a you know, it's

632
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 1: the kind of analysis that a culture that is that

633
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 1: is more situated on the land and and does not

634
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: view the ocean as the majority of the world or

635
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: their world. I keep coming back to this, uh analysis

636
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: that for the for instance, the Polynesians, most of the

637
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: world was ocean and and and generally that's not the

638
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: sort of worldview you encounter with with with Western civilizations.

639
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 1: And now certainly you have certain you know, civilizations and

640
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 1: cultures within the civilizations that are more uh nautical and

641
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 1: more dependent on maritime traditions. But but even then it's

642
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 1: it's it's often the case that they are they're more

643
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: attached to the land, they closer to the continent, and

644
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 1: in these cases we're dealing with with with islands within

645
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: just a vast world of water. Now, there's one big

646
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 1: question that Lewis also addresses in his book, which is

647
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 1: the question of what happened to so much of this,

648
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 1: this ancient Pacific navigational knowledge. Right, clearly some people in

649
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 1: the twentieth century still possess it, but this seems to

650
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 1: have become increasingly rare. Uh. And you could easily blame

651
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: the import of foreign navigation equipment and techniques by other cultures. Right, So,

652
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: if you have brought in charts and compasses and things

653
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 1: like that from from elsewhere, there's less need to rely

654
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 1: on the ancient navigational lore to get from place to place.

655
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 1: But unfortunately it doesn't seem like that's the only cause.

656
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: It also seems that by the last few centuries, many

657
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: island groups in the Pacific came to be ruled by

658
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:54,160
Speaker 1: foreign empires, and those empires in many cases simply forbade

659
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 1: travel between islands. Lewis writes in in one footnote in

660
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,440
Speaker 1: the book, quote the banning by your European administrations of

661
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: Inner Island canoe travel must have been a potent cause

662
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 1: of navigational decline. Voyages were forbidden, for instance, in the Carolines.

663
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 1: In German times, it Illan attributed the loss of traditional

664
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: lore on Nningo to the effect of the old German regulations.

665
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: Prohibitions remain in force today, and this would have been

666
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:23,800
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two in among other places, the Tahiti group,

667
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: and voyaging is strongly discouraged in the Gilbert's Not only

668
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 1: must atrophy of knowledge have resulted, but deliberate voyages had

669
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 1: to be kept secret. Advent upon another island was invariably

670
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: attributed to accident. So this seems to be one of

671
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: the detrimental effects of various colonialisms on on on the

672
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: Pacific islands that it would have led to a steepening

673
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:50,359
Speaker 1: decline in the ancient navigational lore and the passing down

674
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:52,840
Speaker 1: of this knowledge about how to navigate by the stars

675
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: and these other signs, because there was simply less opportunity

676
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: for people to navigate to, you know, go out in

677
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: the open ocean the way they would have for now

678
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 1: it's interesting too though that there are exceptions to this,

679
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:08,320
Speaker 1: uh as well. I was looking at this on that

680
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 1: that Hokolea website and over there that they discussed and

681
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,319
Speaker 1: this is also discussed at UM on the website for

682
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 1: the for the Bishop Museum UM in Hawaii on the

683
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:23,720
Speaker 1: island of Oahu, which is an excellent museum about various

684
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,399
Speaker 1: Polynesian cultures and gets into a lot of what we're

685
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: discussing here. Definitely worth visiting if you if you make

686
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: it out to Oahu. UM. But that as as discussed

687
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: these on the both of these sources, the art of

688
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: deep sea voyaging in Hawaii had it been extinct for

689
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 1: several hundred years before contact with Europeans. So this period

690
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: of of long voyages ended along with all contact with

691
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 1: other Polynesian islands, and they lived in near complete isolation

692
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 1: until seventeen seventy eight, right, So that's fascinating as well. Yeah,

693
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:56,480
Speaker 1: so there could be a number of causes there. So

694
00:39:56,520 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 1: there's also there's like, in one sense, you could have

695
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: a kind of natural atrophy of knowledge, and then there

696
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: could be some loss of knowledge by by imposition of

697
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: colonial rule, and then also some loss of knowledge by

698
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:12,360
Speaker 1: the introduction of alternative methods for travel. Yeah, but fortunately

699
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:14,640
Speaker 1: not all the knowledge was lost, and so we have

700
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: the accounts of of Lewis doing this firsthand research with

701
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:22,399
Speaker 1: with master navigators like hip or and and Tevik. And

702
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 1: I was going to get into some of the specifics

703
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:27,879
Speaker 1: of of these navigation techniques in this episode, but we're

704
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 1: already running kind of long, so I think maybe we

705
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 1: should call it there and then come and talk about

706
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: the navigation techniques in part two. Yeah, how to read

707
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 1: these environmental cues and engage in environmental navigation and then

708
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,319
Speaker 1: and then also some of the history of proving it

709
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 1: out and then what what that those experiments those uh uh,

710
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: those those voyages approved about history itself. So join us

711
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:55,080
Speaker 1: next time as we continue to discuss this topic. In

712
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would have liked to listen to

713
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 1: other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you'll find

714
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: them in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed,

715
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 1: and that can be found wherever you get your podcasts.

716
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,080
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717
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:09,759
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718
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:13,719
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Speaker 1: us out. I love a good star rating, Love Good subscription,

720
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 1: keep it in huge thanks as always to our excellent

721
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to

722
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

723
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:27,120
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724
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

725
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