Pacific pioneers

UNESCO Courier, August-Sept, 1991 by Tipene O'Regan

IN Polynesian myth, the primal spiritual force is Tangaroa, the atua, or god, of the ocean. The sky, Raki, is his parent, and Hinemoana, the woman of the sea, is his partner. Tangaroa appears in different forms within the diverse but connected cultures of Polynesia as a figure who cannot be escaped and must always be accommodated.

The Polynesians inhabit a world which consists almost entirely of ocean. Apart from New Zealand, the land area they know consists of small islands, some of them volcanic outcrops and many others mere coral atolls. Habitable land constitutes no more than 1.5 per cent of Polynesia.

In Polynesian mythology the land comes from the sea, from which it has been drawn by the demi-god Maui. Islands are great fish dragged from the depths, or waka (canoes) from which Maui brought lesser islands to the surface.

The indigenous people of Polynesia share a high level of linguistic, ethnic and cultural unity, tempered by a diversity resulting largely from adaptation to the specific island worlds where they have made their homes. They live within the vast area of the Pacific which is known as the Polynesian Triangle and is divided into two closely related yet culturally distinct areas, Western Polynesia and Eastern Polynesia. The former comprises Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu and, historically, part of Fiji. The latter consists of Hawaii, the Tahiti group of islands, the Cook islands, the Marquesas, Rapanul (Easter Island) and Aotearoa (New Zealand).

THE PEOPLING OF POLYNESIA

Who were these people and where did they come from? Modern scholarship concludes that their ancestors were Austronesian seafarers who worked their way from a starting point somewhere in Southeast Asia down the island chains to what is now the western Polynesian Triangle. Archaeological evidence based on the remains of their distinctive pottery suggests that these people were capable of sailing over vast areas of ocean from one group of islands to another.

What was to become Polynesian culture began to appear about 6,000 years ago in the Tonga-Samoa triangle. Then, some 2,000 years later, some of these proto-Polynesians broke out into Eastern Polynesia. It is widely believed that this great leap into oceanic space took them to the Marquesas Islands, from which they then dispersed to Hawaii, the Tahiti group and from there to Aotearoa. This last major movement seems to have occurred about a thousand years ago. A glance at the Polynesian triangle on a map of the Pacific is enough to give some idea of the extraordinary distances involved.

Were these migrations purposeful or were they accidental drift" voyages? The scholarly consensus, based on computer simulation of ancient weather conditions and other evidence, such as the distribution of plants and animals, suggests that although some accidental voyages may have occurred there was intended and purposeful migration.

One argument against the drift thesis is that the known pattern of migration conflicts with the prevailing easterly winds of the Triangle. In fact the wind shifts to the west at more or less regular times, and waiting for this west wind became an important element in Polynesian religious beliefs. Tawhiri-a-matca, the god of winds, is almost as important in Polynesian traditions as Tangaroa, and in the whakapapa (genealogy) of creation, he is the elder brother with whom Tangaroa most closely interacts. This relationship was active and constant, and when the Polynesians put out to sea it was into the hands of these two atua that they entrusted themselves.

THE CANOE, SYMBOL OF PRESTIGE

The dominating cultural object in migration tradition was the waka or canoe, which was a symbol of mana, tribal authority, chiefly prestige and, most of all, wealth. Building a great canoe was a major exercise which required the full commitment of the skilled members of the tribe and called for resources that only a few of the high island cultures of Polynesia could afford. The decoration of the waka and the ritual associated with it became a major focus of religious life.

Far from being a frail and inadequate vessel, the traditional Polynesian canoe was, for its time, at the leading edge of maritime technology. We know from historical evidence and more recent simulated research that its double hulls, lashed together with sennit, were capable of sailing at great speed. The heavy stresses experienced in modern twin-hulled catamarans were avoided by keeping the canoe hulls quite close together so that they did not create too much resistance to the pressure of the sails on the hulls. The latter were able to give" to the pressure of wind and to flex and "work" with the movement of the waves.

The distinctive Polynesian sprit sail which drove these canoes was woven from pandanus fibre. Recent simulated studies suggest that it had more driving force than even the fore and aft rig of modern vessels. It was, however, more difficult to control. A remarkable modern reconstruction of a Polynesian voyaging canoe, the Hawaiian-built Hokule'a, has made swift voyages between Hawaii and Tahiti, Tahiti and Raratonga, and Raratonga and New Zealand.