Rediscovery of a vanishing art
39
was in Tahiti in 1774-5 (Corney, 1914: vol. II, 285). Then there are the writings of Cookâs companions, especially Banks and the Forsters, for example Banksâs Endeavour journal (ed. Beaglehole, 1962: vol. I, 368) and J. R. Fors terâs book (1778: 501-31). In Tahiti too the missionary Orsmond collected chants of astronomical and navigational significance, which were published by his granddaughter, Teuira Henry. They include âThe Birth of New Landsâ (1894), and âBirth of Heavenly Bodiesâ (1907). William W yatt Gill, another missionary, has left us with a detailed picture of the Cook Islandsâ âwind compassâ orientation system (1876b: 319). The two Hawaiians, Kepelino (1932: 82) and Kamakau (1891: 142), despite the incorporation of some European ideas, provide valuable source material. In the present century there has been Augustin Kramerâs valuable though ambiguous report on Samoan navigation (1902: vol. II, 244-7), Collocottâs work on Tongan astro nomy (1922), the Beagleholesâ series of relatively detailed star course sailing directions from Pukapuka (1938), and Raymond Firthâs similar material from Tikopia and Anuta (1931, 1954). For the rest, there are but snippets of informationâa sentence here, a few words there, scattered through innumerable works. Concerning Micronesia we are rather more fortunate, for in spite of the early discovery of at least one of the archipelagos (Magellan came on the Marianas in 1521), more intimate contacts tended to lag about a century behind Polynesia, so that much of the old lore survived. Happily for purposes of comparison, navigational accuracy in both the sections of Oceania seems to have been com parable. In the Gilbert Islands uniquely detailed and compre hensive navigational data were collected by Sir Arthur Grimble (1924, 1931, 1943, and MSS. in possession of Maude and of Rosemary Grimble). There is also a soli tary, but most valuable, account of a zenith star observa tion, that was recorded by Fr Sabatier (1939). The Carolines are also well served. In the eighteenth century there was Fr Cantova (1728) and in the nine teenth Sanchez (1866). The observations of KrĂ€mer,