HOKULE’A…A RE-AWAKENING OF POLYNESIAN VOYAGING…
(…from all those long and multiple threads of cultural history)

Cultural history, much like our strands of DNA, seems to be a continuum of evolutionary adaptation and mutation, as each succeeding generation encounters changes in its environmental circumstances. While the core substance of any given culture remains stubbornly constant, all those adaptations and mutations over time modify its characteristics. Hokule’a…as a re-awakening of Polynesian voyaging, from all those long multiple threads of cultural history…is a prime example of that. Even the name… Polynesian…indicates a multiplicity of origins for it.

We were in Hawaii back in the mid 1970’s, when a small group of Hawaiians, intrigued by that tradition, and wondering how their Polynesian ancestors had managed to come to their islands, began researching into it. From pictures of vague petroglyphs, written descriptions by early visitors such as Captain Cook, and oral recollections of some of their elders, they arrived at the inspired notion to re-construct one of those ancient Polynesian voyaging canoes. It was not an easy task. No one had built, or even seen one over several hundred years. The modern outrigger canoes with which they gave thrill rides over the surf to mainland tourists only gave faint clues on how to go about it.

Yet, everyone did know that most of island lands in the Pacific had been discovered and settled by their ancestors, but no one really understood how they had done so, beyond the fact that they did it with double-hulled, catamaran type craft, with strange looking “crab-claw” sails. Even more puzzling was how those ancient Polynesian mariners managed to navigate their crafts over the vast open seas of that ocean to reach those tiny specs of land scattered all over it…all without any forms of navigating instruments or even a compass.

But they began trying to build one anyway. It was a trial and error process with lots of failures along the way. Everyone thought they were nuts, and even local authorities considered intervening in their efforts when one of their newly constructed attempts fell apart on its test cruise between Oahu and Kuwai, causing the tragic loss of several of their members. That almost ended their project. Even so, after a brief hiatus of going back to the drawing boards, so to speak, they finally completed what became known as – Hokule’a – their star of the sea, which then not only passed its new test cruise expectations but managed to get Coast Guard certification as an ocean going craft as well.

But there was a problem. Now that they had built it, they needed someone to teach them how to navigate it the same way their ancestors had done. Eventually they found an old-timer way off in Micronesia who still knew enough of those old navigating techniques to be able to help them. It was almost a forgotten knowledge and practical skills for combining celestial navigation, understanding the character, form, size, and direction of ocean swells and waves, the meaning of cloud formations, winds, currents, activities of sea-birds, etc., as a compendium of intuitive data which, more or less, not only let you know where you were, but where you were heading as well.

So we were there when they finally were able to shove off and launch themselves on that voyage to back-track their way over a thousand nautical miles to Tahiti, where their ancestors had come from. It had been nearly a thousand years since such a voyage had been made, but they made it, with a near perfect landfall at one of Tahiti’s outer reaches. From the reports we heard about it at the time, their arrival there was greeted with nation-wide riotous celebrations lasting over a week. They were treated as heroes, much as we treated our astronauts who had walked on the moon. Hokule’a then repeated that feat by sailing all the way back to Hawaii again. But, unlike at Tahiti, their arrival back home barely got any fanfare. So, after a few formalities, and official PR posturing for the six o’clock local newscasts, they were quickly forgotten as everyone went back to the business of hustling mainland visitors with ersatz “tiny bubbles” hula shows, and other schlock performances passed off as exposure to Hawaiian “culture.”

But those of us who were fortunate enough to have some personal connections with their crew, were invited to join them at their private homecoming celebrations at Eva Beach…at the time the Hawaiian version of Australia’s “outback”…and away from all that. We don’t recall many of the details about that three-day beach party there, other than to say it was a complete community affair around dozens of campfires, with non-stop feasting on fire-pit roasted pig, taro root poi, fish, yams, fruits of all kinds, most generously washed down with plenty of beer and Hawaiian “moonshine”, and with everyone from the youngest to the most elderly singing and hula-hula cavorting…all over the place. It was the grandest of welcome home parties, indeed.

From all those events came the birth of today’s Polynesian Voyaging Society sponsoring annual voyaging canoe competitions, promoting the oceanic voyaging of an unsurpassed mariner culture. And, today, Hokule’a itself is on a two year voyage across the vastness of our globe’s oceans…all the way from far Rapa Nui (Easter Island), to New Zealand, past Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, westward across the Indian Ocean, to pass South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, into the Atlantic, up through the Caribbean to Florida, and on along our eastern shores, with way-stops along the way, including Washington, and now at this very moment, giving the Big Apple, New York City, a quick howdy, before sailing on to other far places. A truly remarkable proof of the validity of what those ancient Polynesians accomplished so long ago.

We’re inserting a bit of historical speculation here. A footnote, if you will. As mentioned above, those voyaging Polynesians and their grand descendant – Hokule’a – may be the end product of a long, long, thread of cultural DNA, one which may reach as far back as Alexander the Great, some 2300 years ago. Their very name suggests it, and here are our speculative thoughts about such possibilities.

Alexander’s army that had marched all the way to the western borders of India was made up of many different ethnic and national elements…from the detritus of the previously conquered Persian Empire…Armenians, Anatolians, Assyrians, Afghanis, Greeks, Macedonians, Palestinians, Egyptians, Arabs, etc.. While its organization and structure was based on a classic Macedonian core, it had many of these other non-Macedonian elements as part of it. Alexander also had a companion naval fleet composed of the classic Greek biremes and triremes of those times. But by the time that motley array reached the borders of India, it was tired of so many years of campaigning and just wanted to go home. In effect it was a near mutiny, so Alexander had to grudgingly accept it and turn back for home. But it was a terrible march back (almost as bad a Napoleon’s retreat from Russia) across a desert landscape with little food, forage, or water. Had it not been for his naval component, led by his admiral Nearchus, which managed to provide for some of their needs, most would never had made it back, and Alexander never forgot it.

So as soon as they were back, he made new plans to return and conquer India, this time however not by land, but by sea…and Nearchus was tasked with putting a fleet together capable of carrying such a host, with all the necessary food, water, and other gear they would need for that venture. Slowly, all of those forces, the ships, the weapons, and the supplies were gathered together. Then, after several years of preparation, and just as they were ready to embark for India…Alexander suddenly died in Egypt and all hell broke out as his chief lieutenants… Ptolemy, Seluceus, and others, began fighting with each other as they carved up his empire.

So here’s the interesting and speculative part…at this point, Nearchus apparently simply disappears from history; but, given what was happening on land, and with such a fleet at his disposal, ready for a planned back-tracking venture along a previously explored coast and seas, and knowing that he couldn’t compete with those quarreling over who would have what of that empire, he may have opted instead to just leave and seek to carve out his own kingdom over there in India. No one knows if that actually happened, of course, yet, there are strange cultural bits and pieces scattered across that track from the Persian Gulf into the island world of the Pacific.

Things like…the emergence of Hellenic style influences in the sculptured representation of human forms…from India into Southeast Asia and Indonesia…ship forms having strong profile similarities to biremes and triremes…a channel through the Andaman Islands named…the Nearchus Channel…which by now what remained of that fleet had morphed into a poly-cultural matrix, picking up and dropping off other cultural elements along the way, including those proto-Malay components from which early forms of – Polynesian – emerged.

All of that was spread over centuries of time, adapting, adopting, modifying as it slowly changed. Even so, both physiological and cultural trace elements appear scattered all along that track, such as the so-called “Armenian Nose” found only among Armenians and the natives of…New Guinea…curling hair rather than the characteristic straight Asian form… strangely similar forms of weapons and equipment not made of metal, but of local materials such as sennet fibers for helmets, wooden sword-like weapons edged with sharp coral or shark teeth…long spears with horn points…round shields of woven matting, etc. But the most remarkable of all is the statue of King Kamehameha, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Viewed in silhouette, his crested helmet, long spear, cloak, and round shield…are almost identical in silhouette to that of a Macedonian/Greek hoplite.

Lastly, in profile, the bireme/trireme configuration morphed, to become the outrigger type craft seen all along that distant track. Mostly confined to the relatively short distances between the various islands of Southeast Asia, where the outrigger system was sufficient, as things migrated further eastward, encountering the heavier seas of the open Pacific, while the profile of their root forms remained, outriggers then further morphed into the double-hulled catamaran configuration…of the Polynesian voyaging canoe.

This all extremely speculative of course, but it does make us wonder. None of that however can, nor must it, diminish what those ancient Polynesian mariners achieved. Theirs remains a unique culture adapted to an oceanic environment, and few others, except perhaps the Phoenicians and the Norse, ever reached that near level of expertise and skill in oceanic travel.

CENTURION