The Pacific Islanders Memory and Navigation

Writing is believed to have been developed first in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia in what is now southern Iraq from Baghdad to the Arabian Gulf, and later and independently in Egypt and China. The reasons for its inception were several and basically legal,

the need for people crowded together to define the boundaries of their lands

the need for treaties defineing the settlements of wars

the need of money records and agreements in trade.

 The Islanders did not need such urgency. There were no cities or towns, family groups were spread around the shores and up the valleys of the islands with boundaries defined by the natural ridges. There was little trade that needed settled with money, only vague customery exchange of hospitality and gifts whose value was registered in the heart and head. Thus the memory was trusted to recall the exchanges and dates and communications were always face to face. Because modern man is so dependant on graphics and numbers we have difficulty in accepting that the Islanders navigated without reference to tables and charts.

Written symbols are a special extension of sight and this graphic sight has become an extension of our brain and memory has been almost entirely surrendered to writing. The stars and islands positions were kept in his head free from contamination and deterioration.

The Islanders used sticks and shell and stones and bamboo charts to layout the relationships between islands, star paths, wind directions, currents and seaswells.

The European scientific method used essentially a combination of trigonometry and time. With this the navigator computed hour angles, declinations, right ascensions, parallax, and refraction.

The Islander navigator had a rough guide to latitude by looking at Polaris or the Southern Cross. He then steered by the rising and setting stars, waves and swells, winds and clouds. He had no word for distance nor use for space. Most of the departures were at night, the departure point was out from an island and the rising stars set the course.

 Tevake, a navigator from Peleni atoll of Santa Cruz, who helped David Lewis.

Bridge of a modern ship with an array of navigaiton aids