FINALLY A PROPER TRIBUTE TO THE PACIFIC'S ANCIENT EXPLORERS
The Pacific Ocean is being reclaimed by the heirs of its original explorers, using the technology of their master mariner ancestors.
Over the two and a half thousand years from 1,500BC to 1,000AD, Polynesian explorers conquered the world’s largest ocean with superb seamanship and dauntless grit, voyaging east from Vanuatu to the Marquesas by 500BC, to Hawaii by 300AD and to Aotearoa-New Zealand by around 1,000AD.
This process of exploration is surely one of the most remarkable in prehistory.
Now fleets of traditional-style, double-hulled, ocean-going vaka / waka are once again traversing the vast spaces of the Pacific - and the Pacific Voyager's Network is reuniting the descendants of the Polynesian diaspora, as vessels from New Zealand, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa convene.
The modern wakas are double-hulled vessels (22m in length) constructed from e-glass and foam but raditional boat building techniques are still visible with the hulls being bound together using wooden beams and rope lashings.
Authenticity is maintained with the vaka adorned with customary carving, colouring and insignias of each nation. Traditional flax sails and modern sails are used and two of the vaka include a solar power system for auxiliary propulsion.
The ventures are being support of Okeanos, a German-based philanthropic organisation formed with the objective of protecting the world's oceans and marine life, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which has initiated the Pacific Ocean 2020 Challenge.
The IUCN brings together 181 countries in a global partnership to help societies to ensure the use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable. The target of the Challenge is to achieve a healthy, sustainable and productive Pacific Ocean by the year 2020.
Last year, waka or traditional Pacific ocean-going canoes were the centre piece of the Te Kumete O Te Moana Nui regatta in Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour.
Te Kumete means bowl – the bowl that is shared (particularly for the ritual drinking of kava) – and in a sense the bowl also represents the great ocean itself – Te Moana Nui – which is shared by those of Polynesian origins.
The original four waka were:
• Te Matua a Maui (New Zealand crew)
• Hine Moana (Western Samoa, Vanuatu, Tongan crew)
• Uto Ni Yalo (Fijian crew)
• Maramaru Atua (Cook Islands crew).
They left on 14 April 2010 for a successful voyage to French Polynesia, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji and were joined in Tahiti with a local crew sailing 'Faafaite'.
This year’s fleet is larger and more ambitious and seven waka plan to voyage as far as Hawaii via Tahiti.
The aims of the voyages are to re-establish cultural links through traditional voyaging and to raise awareness of the key environmental issues threatening the Pacific Ocean - including ocean noise, pollution, habitat destruction, overfishing, acidification and de-oxidation and climate change.
The crews are also rediscovering traditional sailing and navigational knowledge, skills and customs, setting the platform for safeguarding the technology and culture for future generations.
I’ll let the Hawaii Star take up the story of the impending departure of the 2011 fleet:
TRANS-PACIFIC VOYAGE BOUND FOR HAWAII
[from Hawaii Star, March 29, 2011]
Green power will take seven traditional vaka, or canoes, on an epic expedition of re-discovery across 15,000 nautical miles of the Pacific Ocean. Powered solely by the sun and the wind, the double-hulled, 22-meter vaka will leave their Pacific home countries over the next month and sail to Hawaii via French Polynesia in the wake of their ancestors.
The vaka make up a pan-Pacific network of voyaging societies which aim to raise awareness of environmental issues — including ocean noise pollution, acidification and anoxic waters — in tandem with recapturing traditional Pacific voyaging and navigational skills and re-establishing cultural links between Pacific neighbours.
The network is supported by Okeanos, a German-based philanthropic organization which promotes the protection of the world’s oceans and marine life.
Four of the vaka took part in a shorter voyage in 2010, sailing from New Zealand to French Polynesia, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. Among those on last year’s journey was Mr Barclay Kerr, vaka expert and curriculum manager at the New Zealand tertiary institute Te Wananga o Aotearoa, Hoturua.
Mr Barclay-Kerr, who will ‘celestially navigate’ the Haunui, describes this year’s event as a full performance after last year’s dress rehearsal:
“Despite having to organise seven canoe loads of people, preparations are going well, probably because the logistics were worked through last year. This journey will take up a large chunk of our lives, but we are taking a strong environmental message that impacts on all of us across the Pacific, so it is important that people see our commitment in carrying that message.
For me, doing another voyage means being able to bring a canoe into islands where people have only heard stories about their ancestors doing this sort of thing. We are able to reinforce the stories told in these different Pacific cultures about the knowledge and abilities of their ancestors. To see this on their faces is a great thing.”
Mr Barclay-Kerr says that not only do the crews need to be good sailors who are able to work together in a confined space for a long period of time; they must also be able to deliver articulate messages about being responsible guardians of their environment.
“We have to ensure the oceans and our world are being taken care of.”
After having arrived in Hawaii, the crew will attend a conference addressing the costs which ocean climate change will have for us all if we don’t change our behaviour.
The journey of the vaka will continue to North America to teach young people about the voyage and the environment.
They will return via the Cocos Islands, Galapagos, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, with the ultimate destination of the Solomon Islands for the 11th Pacific Arts Festival in 2012.
The New Zealand-based contingent of this extreme voyage will depart from Auckland’s Viaduct harbour on April 12th (weather permitting).
These four vaka – Gaualofa (Western Samoa crew). Uto Ni Yalo (Fiji), Haunui (Pan Pacific), Te Mataua a Maui (New Zealand) and Hine Moana (Pan Pacific) – rendezvous with the rest of the fleet, Marumaru Atua (Cook Islands) and Faafaite (Tahiti) at the Tuamotu Islands, French Polynesia, in late April for the first part of the project.
Once the fleet is underway the public can follow its progress via the official voyage and project website, which will carry daily blogs from crews, as well as on Twitter and Facebook.
The voyage will also be the subject of documentary film produced by Okeanos and its subsidiary, the New Zealand company Oceanic Nature Film Productions.
THE MAORI DIMENSION – THE DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF NEW ZEALAND
The Maori waka will be retracing the keel-furrows of the Kupe, who discovered Aotearoa-New Zealand from his mythical homeland in Hawaiki, and his descendants, the ancestors of Maori, who settled the country via the Cook Islands. According to tribal narratives, Kupe was the first Polynesian to discover the islands of New Zealand. His journey there was triggered by difficulties with fishing in Hawaiki, his homeland. Apparently the problem was a great octopus belonging to Kupe’s competitor, Muturangi.
Kupe set out in his canoe to kill the octopus, and such was the length of the pursuit that it brought him to New Zealand. With a companion known as Ngake (or Ngahue) in another canoe called Tāwhirirangi, he pursued the creature all the way to Cook Strait (known as Raukawakawa), where it was finally destroyed.
Most Maori tribes claim some affiliation with Kupe, and it is said that his wife, Kuramārōtini, devised the name of Ao-tea-roa (‘long white cloud’) on seeing the North Island for the first time.
In one account Kupe travelled down the west coast from the Auckland region to Taranaki, and then to the Cook Strait region. Here the two birds (i.e. waka), which he had brought from Hawaiki, set off to the South Island to survey the new lands.
One, a ‘cormorant’ named Te Kawau-a-Toru, became ensnared at Te Aumiti, a narrow stretch of water off Rangitoto (D’Urville Island):
‘Te Kawau-a-Toru proceeded … he put one of his wings into the water and the other was above but he did not have a sound footing … Friend! The wing broke … and Kupe’s champion perished’.
So the breaking of the wing formed the passage (now known as French Pass) through which vessels can now sail, while the unharmed wing remains an obstruction - the rocky reef known as Te Kawau-a-Toru.
The Maori tribal canoe / waka traditions or stories describe the arrival in New Zealand of Māori ancestors from their initial place of origin Hawaiki.
The oral history that recounts the exodus to a new land has cascaded down through successive generations of tohunga (wise elders. It is, like the Old Testament, a mixture of fact, myth and commentary - that it is likewise hard to completely reconcile with the archaeological evidence).
Some ancestors are said to have been nine feet (2.7 m) tall, while others are said to have flown, swum or travelled on taniwha (sea monsters) to New Zealand. The Aoaonui is a poetic image of a canoe transporting newborn infants into the world, and Rangikēkero and Rangitōtohu are also metaphorical vessels that convey the souls of the dead to their final rest in Te Ao Wairua (the spirit world).
According to the Great Fleet theory, Kupe first discovered New Zealand from Tahiti in 925 AD, and was followed by another explorer, Toi, in 1150. After this, in 1350, a fleet of seven canoes sailed from Tahiti and Rarotonga, bringing the ancestors of Māori to New Zealand. The science so far points to the first settlers arriving in the 1200s.
As the Maori tribes became established and jostled for territory and dominance, the canoe traditions became important to their identity. Whakapapa (genealogical links) back to the crew of founding canoes served to establish the origins of tribes, and defined relationships with other tribes. For example, a number of tribes trace their origin to the Tainui canoe, while others such as Te Arawa take their name from a founding canoe.
When identifying themselves on a marae (meeting place), Maori mention their waka first and foremost.
No comments:
Post a Comment