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The Navigators: pathfinders of the Pacific

by: Lowe, Sanford H; Estus, Boyd; Documentary Educational Resources (Firm)

Publication date: 1983

Topics: The Navigators, Prehistoric peoples, Navigation, Boats, Prehistoric, Antiquities

Publisher: Watertown, MA : Documentary Educational Resources

Language: English

From WorldCat:

Follows archaeologists as they seek clues to the origins and achievements of ancient Polynesian seafarers. Shows the excavation of a powerful voyaging canoe on the Tahitian island of Huahine, early sailing routes in Fiji, and traces of Hawaii's first settlers on Molokai.

Title from data sheet

Access-restricted-item: true

Addeddate: 2015-07-18 01:07:01

Boxid: IA1130110

Identifier: thenavigators

Lccn: 83700898

Ocr: A. Canuck. Internet. Is powering Quint I know. A poorly in makeup or maim or a care can. Probably is a man a child of tight. Why time landfall forty ish and mariners who crossed at the subject more than a thousand years ago. In one hundred seventy six a commune set out from Hawaii to retrace the legendary voyaging road today hitting. The canoe is guided by one of the last the president in Chicago. Mountie I like. Butter by several factors. Spoiler lent the share the trip to to He was very beautiful and wonderful memories is there and they got a bit of worry I know the people of Haiti and what we want navigated it will ripple really appreciate about if I said already matchmaking they didn't use it as a few minutes. Navigate about the star and way I bought it very with sorry for an audible you know believer in every pub or me but I'm going to be a bit of what it was a good able by made the trip to show those people around him are you. What their ancestors used to know. A lot are low you at the end what we still know and I got to sit on it for you to park up. Mouse whom waters are in Micronesia two thousand miles to the west of Hawaii. Tiny islands are separated by vast ocean distances and the people depend on navigators like mouth for survival for the point about about what brought it from out of it. Oh a couple. That were born. Where am I going to fix. The navigators of settle the last of a nation of sailors one settled the entire Pacific. The Pacific Ocean. Larger than all of the Earth's continents combined when Europeans first glimpse this cement see virtually all of its more than ten thousand islands had already been discovered by a more daring nation of seafarers. In the most remote islands of the Western Pacific. The secrets of navigation are still passed down from one generation to the next. Sensual is a tiny coral atolls one mile square and barely eight feet above sea level. Is going to. Be like these are going to. Take it in the dim witted New Orleans but even that no. Human effort to guide the to find is that our own. Mouth the analog learn to navigate from this God when grandfather now it is malice turn to pass on the skills. At sunset he teaches his nephew to recognize signs of whether in the sky and see it got a thought occurred to me now most of us mostly things about a lot. Of them setting up a I had a man with a do it in fact some of the doing of. The shapes and colors of the sky and the words of his teacher will one day guide Mao's nephew across the oceans. Eleven Downing a it's out out of the debt already navigation is different than yours. Mad that I don't need a map or a sexton he says he I just use my one minute by observing the ocean about that sky him receiver but again and I remember the words of my teachers wearing what you cut out. There are two kinds of navigators. The man who only knows how to say oh he's called Puzzles. But the man who knows but failing that magic is called Paul. To become full you have to be initiated in the special ceremony. The post ceremony has not been performed for more than twenty years. Mao was the last man on his island to be initiated into the secrets of both magic and that a Geisha and. The sea is the men's domain. The land and settle all belong to the women. Mowing his wife Katrina have sixteen children on a Saturday and the women of their families gathered to prepare food. Coconut bread fruit and tarot prostate both throughout the Pacific. Means food plans are not native to the islands well reported by the first settlers. Mao is fifty years old he learn navigation when he was very young. My grandfather taught me never gave she knew he rested from his work in a group. Of people. I listened carefully until he died. And then my father taught me good. And he's a putting the boy so bloated they have a five when I had a mess when I could finally see a limo and I realized how important now because you know what he thought of a kind of a couple of good men who can't navigate their I don't like you don't find it and also Saudi Did they don't have a name thank you. Datable you like I hadn't missed. My After. Two or three times a year. All the men of settle on organize a communal fishing expedition. Now gives final instructions. I said I got out of work. They only really if you want. But I got up by that point are you going to go to the dropped out of my not exactly what we're not going to fight the. Centerline is surrounded by a wreath that is small in provide very little food. To protect the reef the Chiefs me place a taboo one off issue. And only rarely do they allow an event like this. I. Know. That now. Just. Out of we don't know. Of full day's work by all the men and that's only two hundred pounds of the government. Five hundred people live on center while thirty five separate family groups and the catch must be divided fairly among them. Mount the I look is so now Mr and dividing it by. The door to the reef around start the wall is not good. We don't have enough fish so we depend on other items for food. More funded by the I got a bigger The respond with by you got a full of fish we could start or Saudi It's our storehouse forgotten he said you know what would I say oh there we thought are good. Enough for. You. You know. You can save you. Hundreds. You. Don't. Feel when you go to see. Everyone looks up to navigate. He's responsible for the minds of everyone on the screen so he makes all the decisions. His hundred crew are like use to and sold mine. Thank you. With family and so the trip to whisk by you takes an hour and save mountains is the time to teach his crew about the oceans will. Set that up. Huh huh. Now but then I would somebody got me going we don't know it but it was going to the Make. A deal with OK I know I'm dubious about this as a. Way to do that I would argue that hundred man recognizes eight separate patterns of ocean swells. He uses them to set his course of scene photo met up with a dummy. With a lot of these. Hundred thousand ft. West fight you were surrounded by a large lagoon which shelters an abundance of sea life. We call West for you the island of free lunch because there's so much food. West by you belongs to start a lot of people from other islands must ask our permission to fish year but we always give it they wouldn't ask if they didn't eat the food. The. Crew fish the reef but treating the bank. They got seven hundred pounds of fish. Almost four times what the entire village caught on saddle on FB. And to sea turtles especial delicacy. I've got some may just add a small chapel in the center of the island the men pray for a safe journey home. In the past. Maui for and powerful magic to yell away the date and spirited navigators. Now the men prayed to a Christian God. People have thrown away the old spirit. In the old days another gator had more thorough. Because he knew magic and many of his crew respect if you move. Once every island had navigators. Now only a few have this. Week we're not careful. Navigation will die out here. The Navigators of center well are among the last to practice skills once common throughout the Pacific. Barely two hundred years ago European explorers began to look closely at the Pacific Islanders. In seventeen seventy nine two ships of the British Royal Navy dropped anchor off a Y E For the first time. The commander Captain James Cook was a sensitive observer deeply curious about the Islanders he met. He commissioned artist to record their way of life. During twelve years of exploration cook visited almost every major island group in the South Pacific. Everywhere he found striking similarities and dance government and religion a common culture. Cook had discovered the Polynesian. Where Had these people come from and how had they carried their culture so far. Today. Scientists recognized three different cultures in the Pacific. Polynesia in the Central Pacific is the largest group of islands. Melanesia lies to the west. Seattle to the north is part of Micronesia. The Polynesian Zz could have migrated from one of two places Asia or the Americas. Powerful winds and currents flow from east to west in the Pacific. If the bottom Asians came from Asia they sailed directly against these currents and winds. But if they came from the Americas they simply drifted to the islands they settled. The prevailing winds and currents. Convinced or hire a dollar that the Polynesians drifted from South America. In one thousand nine hundred eighty seven higher dollar and a five man crew lost contact on a daring adventure to prove his theory. Contiki could not be steered. For months the men were carried westward in the grip of horrible currents. After ninety three days they sighted land. They had to reach the two images and island chain just east of the Haiti. Unable to budget their wrath from her course they sailed past the first time in. Eight days later. Contiki crashed on a reef that surrounds a Royal Island. Higher down proved that drift voyages between South America and Polynesia were possible. But if the islands were settled this way the Polynesian as were neither competency dollars nor a skilled navigator. Captain James Cook believe the Polynesians were skilled in both navigation and sailing. Cook spent twelve years exploring the Pacific Islands and observing the Polynesians firsthand he saw canoes that carried tons of cargo and sailed circles around his own ships. He met navigators who made around triple wages between islands hundreds of miles apart. Cook was convinced that the Polynesians sailed against the winds and currents from Asia. What cook suspected two hundred years ago has now been proven conclusively that archaeologists working in the Pacific. Here on the island. D.D. level in Fiji they have found evidence of migrations from Asia to punish it. In the singer took a sand dunes three layers of human settlement have been discovered. The love this layer contains traces of an early commie. Legs admitting simple pieces of broken pottery like these. Dr Roger Green Eyes trace the roots of the Pacific I mean this is the lowest lair and the singer Tova doon side of course is the one that excites us most because it's here that we find the Lapita pottery that dates back to five hundred six hundred B.C. and where we can reconstruct the whole parts from that layer we can of course recognize it by its typical vessel shape and form the important thing of course of this lair is that it allows us to link the kind of material this kind of material with that material to the east from tongue and Samo and with similar material insights the West you know islands to the west and the beauty of that is of course now we're on the track of the origins of the ancestors of the politician. Peoples. For archaeologists. The designs on pottery are the fingerprint of a culture. Of peace is the same. Roger Green has come to the Y. village in Fiji to learn from modern Potters how these ancient designs were made. To think we can make some of these very old designs these are these are thousands of years old three thousand years old. Greene has analyzed the designs on this Lapita wearable and made tools to recreate this ancient pattern you think you could make some of those with some wooden police. This morning to mark out the. Area. Of. You sort of have to rock it don't you just like with this show. Green has a dent of FIDE a series of motifs. These motifs are combined according to rigid rules just as words are combined dramatically debris do some proper sentence. Like speaking the same language using the same designs is evidence that people share a common culture. A last. Resort unless you are. The earliest Lapita designs have been discovered just north of New Guinea in the Bismarck archipelago. From here. Archaeologists have traced the route of an early seafaring people who traveled the eastward across fifteen hundred miles of open ocean. Settling widely scattered islands arriving in Fiji Tonga and Samoa more than three thousand years ago. One of the interesting things is a support that the pottery analysis receives from the other kinds of material but Charles there were exchanged between the Paris look pay to communities things like greater which is used to scrub really for some kind of body paint volcanic glass or obsidian which is used for knives and scrapers and other tools cutting tools and then the chart which is also used in a similar way you know the one that we know the most about amongst these as the Obsidian and for instance we know this Obsidian came from the islands offshore of New Guinea in the Bismarck archipelago and over seven hundred years it was in ported out to the Solomon Islands some thousand miles away now you really can't have people or importing Obsidian for seven hundred years over a thousand miles without crediting them as being very skilful navigators and sailors. And sit ins is now overwhelming that the Polynesians were boys or is against the wind and waves. But today the Micronesians are the only people who build a new sale boy Jean canoes. The cetera Lee's canoe is a supreme technological achievement. It's now a symmetrical holes the shape to offset the drag of the outer eager so the canoe always fails in a straight line. To his craft. Called Flying prawns are designed to sail with their hundred years toward the winds. To change direction the entire sale is moved from one end of the canoe to the other. But. He felt the need. Of of the design of the program has been perfected over three thousand years. Only a few minutes. Master they contribute are making such good. Ways. That. You could just pull the title of Santa. Mr canoe building. Got a bike. And those are used to carve the bow from a Brit food line. If you gun uses no blueprints. Over the years he has memorized the canoes complex shapes. Of one of the higher you know well. That the way you want. Me gone. Away and what do you have. Thank you for that. And. Where Andrew. Form. When he has finished the bow will be taken to a canoe house to drink. There are eight canoe houses and settle on each is a men's social club school and workshop. Everything needed to make a canoe is harvested onset alone. Group is made from coconut fibers. Focus that has separate into fine strands called in. The. Senate rope is corners and binds on itself to make a good lashing the shore canoes. Richard said one by fire will make the seams of the canoe watertight. The flexible outer husk of a coconut provides ideal conking between planks living. Room. For. Each plank has been carved into an exact shape. Wedges and Tom fronts hold the planks in place until the breadfruit set that the time to say. Good as a third of. A minute. Thank you. Two weeks later the canoe is almost finished and the temporary lashings are replaced with Senate probes. Canoes have been built this way for centuries. Throughout the Pacific. These same skills are now being uncovered by archaeologists on an island four thousand miles to the east does that all. On the to Haitian island of Hawaii me Yoshi's. On the to Haitian island of Hawaii me Yoshi Sunoco from the Bishop Museum has made a remarkable discovery. Two planks from an ancient voyaging good news. Buried for eleven hundred years these are the only pieces of an ancient canoe known to exist today. At one end of the plank so no fines evidence of lashing list canoe was held together with Cynic roads just like the canoes on set alarms. Jim hundred fifty eighty a tidal wave. Inundated this site's varying hundreds of objects in a protective layer of mud. So yeah he. Fled the violence. Another. The fall early. Like gather when one finds just like out of the market. Thank you God for strength and a lot for say five more than two hundred fish hooks have been found this one was used for catching small reset for. This pearl shell coconut Greater be shaped like those used on set A Well today. This is a pendants and insignia of rank possibly worn by a chief. So many pearl shell artifacts have been founded Who eighty that's a no to now believe the site was a village where goods were manufactured for training. In another part of the village the archaeologist discovered a spirit so part of a temple or Mara. Here's a man who Heaney performed rituals prior to departing on a voyage. Was a really hard. OK let's middle and telling one last wooden artifact suggest the size of their canoes appear in most of them about thirteen feet long this was a steering paddle for an eighty foot canoe the total length is three metres and eighty kilometres now this is not a complete I don't think so because you can see many you know as cut marks and then lastly outline. Not when we finished the people were making or manufacturing here which means that the country or for. A lot of criminals. Thirteen hundred years ago the people who are in the fashion business plan for a large voyaging canoe. One of my day. Thank. You so much canoes would have carried the Polynesians on Epic voyages of colonization to the furthest reaches of the Pacific. Polynesia was settled in a vast ocean migration which began when the Lapita people arrived in Fiji Tonga and Samoa. More than three thousand years ago. At about the time of Christ they swept a steward into the heart of Polynesia from here they launch their longest and most difficult voyages of exploration to New Zealand. Easter Island and Hawaii. More than fifteen centuries before Captain Cook a Polynesian canoe made landfall in the how why and islands. You. I. Need. You to. The. Luckily. This is a whole lot of Dolly on model cars. Ten years ago. Archaeologists found traces of an ancient a wine village on this site. Now overgrown with vegetation This was home for the islands for a settler so. The ship museum archaeologist Dr Patrick courage. About six hundred eighty a group of early Polynesians arrived here in the LA valley on a smaller car and they they found in this valley just the kind of environment I might have been searching for Apple freshwater LOL And so they could call the vet their sorrow. General Valley slopes where they could far astray potato another dry crops and along the coastline out into the bay. Now full supply of shell fish and fish I ask of it right here in this low mound and found the remains of their early settlement sites from patterns of post malls and stone alignments I could tell that they lived in small round ended huts and Scott are in amongst the huts were stone adzes fishhooks coral files ornaments and Shell and bone and the styles of these artifacts were similar to those which have been found in Tahiti them are cases and other islands to the south I also found here. Bones of dogs pigs and chickens this is interesting because it suggests to me that these people came here on a purposeful voyage of colonization. What's so interesting about the whole of late is it serves as a kind of microcosm for the development of on society from initial settlement right up through the evolution of complex chiefdoms. The deuce by their own rooms abundant resources the Lions gave up their waging and began farming the rich valley slopes. In each valley chiefs rose to power. They fought each other for control of entire islands. Great temples celebrate their conquests and their Gods. In the final centuries before Captain Cook's arrival but sheets of the Y. e waged frequent warfare. So the dwelling cave here in Kona which was also used as a refuge in times of war the site is unique because of the stick figures are pestering us which the commoners who lived here. Packed into the glass see lava walls of the cave here we have a human figure with a canoe paddle raised above his head. Here's a similar human figure again. He holds a canoe paddle above his head and sticks like a fish oak it's interesting to speculate that much of the development in horn society came originally out of the nature of long distance voyaging the navigator and she had to have unquestioned authority if the voyage was to succeed. The crew who were with him had to believe that he would lead them to a new land and so I think is possible to say that much of the development of powerful chieftains in hole I came originally out of a society of the canoe. In one nine hundred seventy six the society of the canoe is reborn. Locally or is an exact replica of a Polynesian Voyaging to know. Whether you. Build with modern materials design is ancient. Locally I will sail between Hawaii into Haiti to celebrate the age old skills of Polynesian canoe builders and navigate. The canoe carries a crew of seventeen and six tons of supplies. Locally as voyage will be made as it was a thousand years ago without maps or instrument. She will be guided by mount the item. DAVID LEWIS A Western navigator and scholar has joined the expedition to learn Mao's way of navigating. The passage is twenty five hundred miles far longer than any Maoist me and he assuming an unfamiliar want. The first few days I was afraid so but I've been through all this before. I feel the sea for many months and I've survived many storms so I put aside my fears and I was happy to be accused. As the scene Miles live by the line crew gain a new respect for their Polynesian and. The. Polynesians used to navigate the way we do today without instruments so chalk they had faith in the words of their fathers. This is what we call coverage. With this coverage you can travel anywhere in the world and never be lost. Because I have faith in the words of my ancestors I am a navigator. I learned these words as a young boy in my father's camels you know like understandable amount passes on these teachings to a new generation of indicators. But at the vehement about a dollar. What a live body. But really shallow. Waters Yeah. Yes a. Strong. Amount begins with the simplest framework what we might think of as a star compass. Thirty two lumps of coral represent the rising and setting points of stars. What is that about this yet but if anyone made up. The compass is oriented to the east the rising of the star called Myla the Big Bird. Man up. You. Might have got. You know. I could buy some of. It could be. Said about it then what would. You do not. Need more clues. Started at the better man up and I'm going to put into it but if they get it but it. Might expect. To get made up by your idea better but don't want to miss out of much of a. Totally. Mouse compass is defined by the rising and setting points of stars. Mine lab always rises to the east of Seattle and sets in the West to define to compass points. Mullo rises in the north east and sets in the northwest. This is two more. The stars of the constellation we call Southern Cross always points out. The axis of the Earth's rotation. Points at the start that never moves will of on the North Star. Moused our compass is a simple teaching device the nighttime sky is actually far more complex. In June the stars move across the eastern sky like this. To Mark is rising and can be used to steer a canoe to the southeast by midnight to Moore has risen too high above the horizon so mom will steer by another star which appears later in the same place. Six to us follow the same path those two more. Each compass point is defined by many stars in all the mouse has memorized the paths of more than one hundred fifty. After twenty days at sea perkily and near the equator to Haiti lies fourteen hundred miles away and Mouse dear is true of the rising to more. Now with you know her. Home like the bit about thirty. Two more. And here is. That right. We do flavor of the much. A thousand miles from to Haiti. Overlay encounters heavy seas. For eight days and nights clouds obscure the skin and mount was denied even a glimpse of his Guiding Stars. He maintains his course by relying on other side we're going to fight you don't I got into what you are not. Yet needed a billboard up guy guy is. Bad. For Greece one final point I know what to put your point of the Word of God of where it will surprise us with the help of got addicted I've got bored if we will sort it out of the four new and a couple of what it is up to. The older guy did all kinds of for Paula that if what you know. Forget about God is sitting on I. Get it it's what I support of. Those with a date on. All of a couple I did to fix if it did. Ditto I don't want. To be found at all and I know. You had a lot. Of the point of view but if you want to do you know I'm about got Jiah Khan auditing shot down a quarter. Of a divide in the you know I had it was about a good I thought another way. But of out of out of a bottle but about. Five times. Out of you know I was about. The bottle fed are nice elsewhere but in a of course in the two most of what. A skilled navigators changes every rising and falling of his canoe and. Even when he cannot see this well you can set his course by. This way when to tell me. I don't. Know if you can steal away. Openly and as non-sale more than two thousand miles through changing ocean currents and shifting winds yet mouth always knows the direction and distance to Tahiti. Daily he fixes hopefully it's position by estimating course and speed. And all the other forces acting on the community. See the map. MT sales exists only in his mind he had over twenty five hundred miles of ocean is estimated busy sions are never more than forty miles an hour of. On the thirty's Daisy accurately predicts landfall within twenty four hours. Mouse Quest this fulfilled he has brought an ancient navigational skills back to bunnies in waters and reawakened up people's pride and they're great for aging heritage. Locally as a rival was celebrated as a national holiday. Twenty thousand spectators crowded the sure is to greet their heroic brothers. With. The yes. The do you worry. That that that. The on. The trip to Tahiti was very good because it will remind those people of what their ancestors did and make them want to learn about the new clear. If you're a Leo in a moment our ancestors than we never gave as a source the prize but I get a very miniature And today are different about They've now like the dawn and some are afraid to learn navigation you're going it's on that you know just laziness are you going without the Navigator will start a war and then to be abandoned where our car is a everyone learned to bigger island is likely from the sideline and want to look for a job at a bar now developed this Abbi. Now only the old men the men of my generation left to navigate and want to see it continue. Client Why would a kind of socialism. And I only met. My. I don't know what will happen to my son in law. I think he will leave the I take my daughter. Many of my sons have already gone I gave them my place. My son in law went away to school. Many of the men on my crew have gone to school. I was sent away to but when I came back I continued to study navigation I never lost interest. But most of the younger men who went away to school had no interest in navigation when he came back to suffer while. You know many out of finality Saddam's that that's the reason I won't let my youngest son says you're young over there we can then I am thankful wig and they're going to start a brick and I want them to stay here and learn as much as likely teach them like I said before I die. That after going to school you stumble on they can go to school here that was already going their separate but not on any other ancillary. I want to be here. You. Know. There were so. Many got to move. You couldn't. But the fact I wanted to make this go on because we were young people's but I made a claim you begin to understand how important that we get she needs the I'm going to put somebody want to find it and I don't break the fierce fighting but reporting I have already told him about it but I think they don't study navigation that we will lose it forever that could help us out of the building will make them think what about it was Marilyn sort of funny but of course a couple of buddies that's why the film is an important target he wanted me to because I'm afraid that after my generation but it didn't support there will be no more navigators and. The. So the i'd certainly know. The the. The of the the. The now. How do you for the you know the the. No I'll. Tell you what I thought. My lad I ran off to be. Around. My eyes. And it. Will. Last.