AN INTERNATIONAL SAMPLING Recovering Our Maritime Heritage A s this millennium draws to a close, cultures, nations and individuals are searching the past for identity and direction for the new millennium. Often, they find that their connections to each other and to their own histories are closely tied to their maritime heritage and the purposes that drew them to the oceans in centuries past. This collection of articles takes readers around the globe for a small sampling of how the maritime heritage is reaching out today, reviving skills, ideas and dreams that easily could have disappeared. On Taumako in the Solomons an anthropologist docu-
ments a tradition long thought dead as the island's people bring to life the voyaging canoes that populated the farflung islands of the Pacific. Closer to home, a group on Martha's Vineyard reawakens the voyaging spirit in the unexpectedly landbound children who are the heirs of the island' sfounding merchant seamen and whalers. And across the Atlantic, history is a rediscovered country for generations of Russians, where some are reclaiming the forwardlooking naval heritage of Tsar Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, the city newly renamed for him. J USTINE AHLSTROM
The Return of Lata: Building an Authentic Polynesian Voyaging Canoe by Mimi George, PhD e wanted to learn how stoneage Polynesian craft were built and how they perfo rmed at sea. We wanted to know what motivated Polynesians to voyage and how they fo und their way. Until Paramount Chief Cruso Kaveia of Taumako, a Polynesian island in the southeast Solomons, asked me to help hi s people document the building and sailing of a te puke , it seemed that we had missed our chance. Renow ned maritime scholars swore that there was no one left who could make one and that no living Polynes ian could show us how to sail in the fully traditional way. Even David Lewi s, an expert in traditional Polynesian nav igation and author of We, the Navigators, believed that the last navigator who knew the old methods had died in 1970. At that time it was still widely held that Polynesians colonized a third of the earth 's surface by acc id e nt. Wh en Lewis's We, the Navigators was publi shed in 1972, however, several centuries of European misapprehension and speculation ended. The efficacy of tradi ti onal Polynesian navigation became a sc ientifically verified fac t. From 1972 to 1994 several modern replicas of Polynesian voyaging canoes were built in California, Kiribati, Hawaii , the Cooks, the Marshall s, the Societies , Papua New Guinea and New Zealand , and most were sailed long di stances. But these were not authentic Polynesian canoes. The builders thought that both the experiential knowledge and the natural resources needed were no longer avail able to them. Also, they were loath to risk the lives of the crew by experimenting with sennit or other natural fiber lashings at sea.
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Thus, all the replicas built since the late 1960s have featured modern materials and designs, depending on nylon cordage for structural lashings and epoxy and modern fas teners, plywoods and caulking materi als to hold together hulls and members and make them watertight. Each that has sailed long distances has used dacron sailcloth instead of woven Pandanus mats (except perhaps for ceremonial occasions such as launching) and marconi or modifi ed lateen rigs, meant to look as mu ch like crabclaw sails as poss ible without committing to the true fo m1 . Nor was Polynes ian nav igational know ledge relied upon. Researchers in Hawaii and elsewhere studied traditional navigational lo re fr o m w ritte n sources and living elders. But the information was insufficient and modern data from satellite weather coverage and pil oting charts were used freely. This synthesis of modern and traditi onal knowledge res ulted in non-instrumental methods that worked. That is not the same as learning traditional methods, but at the time it did not seem possible to learn much more about the non-instrument navigati on practiced by ancientPolynesians. Suddenly, Another C hance Now the situation has changed. A new voyaging canoe is not just a replica; it was built by the
Polynes ian heirs to an unbroken chain o f experienti al knowledge. On 12 September 1997, the people of Taumako launched a one-hundred-percent authentic stone-age Polynesian voyaging canoe. It is their own traditional type of vaka called a te puke . Its name is Vaka Taumako-"a voyaging canoe for
Vaka Taumako was launched in 1997 with great celebration. (Photo: Jim Bailey)
SEA HISTORY 84, SPRING 1998