Rediscovering Polynesian Navigation through Experimental Voyaging

Abstract

Over the last two decades, my colleagues and I have sailed a modern reconstruction of a Polynesian voyaging canoe some 40 000 nautical miles through Polynesian waters. This programme has been driven by two intertwined goals: one experimental – to test the sailing technology and navigational methods of the ancient Polynesians in order to resolve issues in Polynesian prehistory; and the other cultural – to enable contemporary Polynesians to relearn the means by which their ancestors found and settled their islands, and thereby gain a better sense of their uniquely maritime heritage and, ultimately, themselves. This paper focuses on the effort to rediscover how to navigate without instruments, and how that rediscovery is helping both to change scientific thinking about the colonization of Polynesia and to transform the selfimage of contemporary Polynesians.