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Polynesians and the Pacific Ocean

The night before starting work, the canoe-builder lodged his stone axe in the sacred enclosure. A feast of fatted pig dedicated to the gods was followed by sleep before he rose at dawn to begin assembling the wood to build the boat.

Over 1000 years before Europeans first sailed into the Pacific Ocean in the 16th century, Polynesians had been exploring the 25,000 islands in its waters. For a long voyage, they would build either a vaka, a boat with teo hulls, or an outrigger - a boat with a float fixed to arms extended on one side, which gives extra stability. A crew of six sufficed: two steersmen, a sail-man, a bailer, a spare hand so that rests could be taken and - most important of all - a navigator whose years of training enabled him to find his way, without instruments or a fixed star, in the vast ocean.

The majority of the 25000 Pacific islands were first found and settled by daring Polynesian sailors.

A smooth-hulled vaka slips through the water at the start of another journey of exploration. The boat is made of horizontal planks sewn with fiber and sealed by sap from the breadfruit plant. It is steered by a puddle at the stern and a dagger-board plunged into the sea near the bow to turn into the wind or at the stern to swing downwind. The central hut is for sleeping and shelter from the Sun as well as for storage. The coarse sails are made of fiber from the pandanus plant or coconut palm.

The travellers took coconuts, vegetables, dried fruits and fish, and a cooked paste made of breadfruit with them, although stowage was limited and the crew must have gone hungry when they could not catch sufficient fish on the journey. To supplement rainfall and coconut milk, some water was carried on board in gourds or hollow bamboo.

A newly built Polynesian vessel is to be bless by the head man and ceremonial launched, sails out of the safety of the lagoon. The villagers have gathered on shore to bid its crew farewell.

Getting the Feel of the Sea

To keep the vessels on course, navigators could correct a few degrees variation in the wind direction by checking it against that of the long-range swells generated by the trade winds. Some would lie down on the outrigger to feel the sea as it rose and fell, and swells were considered significant enough to be recorded on schematic reed-maps, some of which survive. The navigators also built up a prodigious knowledge of the ocean's currents as they gained experience at sea.

The Polynesians judged the latitude of their boats by the Sun and monitored their exact course by the stars - the movements of 16 groups of guiding stars were committed to memory by means of rhymes. They could associate stars with particular destinations accurately enough, according to a Spanish visitor of 1774, to find the harbour of their choice at night.

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Clicking the images will lead you to the websites or hosts of the images I used. And all information written in this blog were properly researched and based on facts I've gathered. I hope you enjoy yourself reading this historical story. Thank you for dropping by!

Happily Yours,
Sammy