E x plorations
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(From top) Morning breaks at Häpai`ali`i Heiau in Keauhou, West Hawai`i, and evening arrives with a western moon, two months later. The monument is believed to have been
used to mark the solstices and observe the movements of the sun and moon. The heiau is carbon-dated to 1411-1465.
ad, we’re lost,” said the voice on the phone. My wife and daughter were somewhere between Corolla, North Carolina, and the Virginia border. “Look up,” I told her. Suspended in the clear winter sky was a full moon. “Which side of the car is it on?” I asked. A skyward glance revealed they were heading the wrong way. Using the moon and the blinking lights of the water towers strung along the highway, they safely returned to our vacation unit without further incident. We may have been on the Atlantic coast that night, but it was lessons from the Pacific that saved the day. Like our Polynesian ancestors before us, we looked up when things were looking down. Centuries before digital watches, GPS technology and Google Calendar, Native Hawaiians measured time, navigated great distances, and charted their daily activities by observing the sun, moon and stars. Thanks to recent efforts, practices thought lost are being revived, and a culture is being revitalized.
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