From Hawaii to New Zealand: How The Polynesians Navigated 

Thank you! It's high praise for me that a student who learned about the methods in a more formal sense finds them to be accurate You're right, I'm certain that islands weren't discovered exclusively by accident, the myths I looked at preserved, I think, some semblance of accidental discovery, but I should think that these were in the minority That and Lapita pottery were topics I was branching into, but I made the decision to cut the video off at purely explaining the methods in as much detail as I could, because there were a lot of examples of people gesturing broadly at navigational methods but very few had engaged properly with the methods

Another thing thats always left out is about micronesian and melanesian navigators used the same methods. The seafaring polynesians came from the West Pacific. Polynesians was able to sail back from Hawaii to Tahiti in the 70's because of 1 man from Micronesia. Mau from satawal Micronesia came to Hawaii to teach the polynesians the lost art all Pacific islanders shared. The canoes that sailed the polynesian islands again in the 2000's were two canoes donated by Micronesia. In honor of Mau the polynesians built a canoe (micronesian design) and sailed it to satawal Micronesia from Hawaii. There a ceremony was held with Mau passing on the title of "po" to his son and 5 polynesians.

@@edwinamugunbay5156 It should be noted that Papa Mau Piailug shared these teachings despite the strict code of secrecy the Pwo* are sworn to. Mau got a lot of grief from his community for sharing the knowledge he had. But he was afraid that no one in his community would learn and pass on the knowledge, hence his willingness to share beyond the Satalwan (and the greater Micronesian group by extension) sphere. Also, all of the five Polynesians were Hawaiian, specifically.

@@mathoskualawa9000 lol @ "Hawaiians specifically". Duly noted. My apologies.

Wow! I'm impressed that you witnessed those voyagers and appreciate the knowledge. Tell the stories. Best to you.

The Tahitians knew there was land to the north by watching migratory land birds :)

@@nmarbletoe8210, that would hint at the general direction, but their boats were probably too slow to follow, on a single trip anyway. Ancient Europeans, Levantines, and north Africans were rarely more than a few days from land. For those Polynesians to travel for weeks or months without seeing land would have tested their trust.

@@et76039 yes it is impressive faith! but i'm sure they could turn around also if they didn't find something. probably. Some of the birds are actually going from Tahiti to Alaska so they really lucked out Hawaii was there. Thankfully the Hawaiian archipelago stretches 1000 miles so it's a big target coming from Tahiti. There was also an idea that each major star had an island chain under its zenith, For Hawaii it is Hokule'a, Arcturus, Star of Gladness because it meant home latitude. Luck? God's design? Or knowledge predating Polynesia? idk

@@nmarbletoe8210 and the South west

​@et76039 there was nothing to go back to they were peoples exiled from home and forced to find new land or perish at sea.

It was brilliant.

Got to pull him up on a few of things though. That pottery ceased being made because of lack of raw material simply isn't true. Here in Aotearoa we have some of the finest pottery clay in the world, so the answer lies elsewhere. Also to suggest islands were discovered accidentally isn't true either. If that were the case the Pacific would never have been colonised. Polynesian techniques for finding land have been well documented, and there was nothing accidental about it. The diagram of how to work out due south from crux is wrong too, but that's a bit pedantic.

As another Maori I'd like to add that not only was the story of Maui use of a fishhook a metaphor , but in fact the use of his Grandmothers jawbone to make the fishhook was allegorical and represents him learning how to navigate from his Grandmother and it was the wisdom and teachings of hers that gave him the ability to sail here .

​@@poisontoad8007yes, the firing of clay relates to the creation myth of Tane Mahuta and Hine Ahuone...

Whairepo, the north island was the stingray. Aotearoa was the south island, the waka of the gods which then became Maui's waka

@@aaronmorgan8819 Aaron there's no evidence of the people who became Māori making pottery, neither in archaeology, whakatauki or any other kōrero. Pottery-making had its heyday in Melanesia. As our ancestors colonised to the east the art declined. By the time they settled Aotearoa it had pretty much if not absolutely finished. No-one knows why, but that's the evidence. Just because the truth doesn't comply with your beliefs doesn't make it any less true. Our mana is our voice. Our mana is our honesty. Let others revise their history. Don't let's revise ours. Let's not fall into that anti-intellectual and shameless trap.

Polynesians would sail against the Trade winds to discover new islands. They would therefore easily return home if not successful and they did. You make it sound like they didnt know what they were doing, when in fact they had generations of knowledge and experience behind them!

A hunch ? You can't be serious ? Trying to find land in the Pacific is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

No actually survivor bias does not apply here because your "hunches" theory has largely been abandoned by most modern academics. In fact: Andrew Sharp's "1963 drifiting theory essentially argues what you argue but elaborates that migration was a series of one way journeys that were largely accidental, and that exiles from established islands simply drifted onto lands. This view was widely rejected in his time and even more so today as it simply ignores far too much evidence that points to an incredibly complex system of navigation that was traversed more like highways. Remember when James Cook was voyaging through the Pacific; he relied heavily on western navigational methods; with even hiring local Polyneasian navigators who he saw as ill equipped to know navigation - however as he spent more time with them; he became amazed at the array of non-european navigational methods that relied heavily on their connection to the land and sea, concluding the islands could only be populated through navigation. This in no way implies they were the only humans doing so btw as modern literature has found many non-european navigational systems like those of the Indians along the coasts through to South East Asia, indigenous in Madagascar etc. however the positioning of the Pacific and it's proximity to the equator helped facilitate the Polynesian system and it's expanse. So what im pretty much saying is these werent people who just went about the ocean blindfolded, just sending people off to the sea without knowing lol settling the islands of the Pacific was methodical and complex.

My advanced ancestors knew that AOTEAROA came out of the Ocean millions of years before they arrived here and knew the north Island looked like a fish ... te Ika o maui

I’ve always wondered about that. To recognise Ika island as a fish and Pounamu/waka island as a canoe- HOW THE HECK DO YOU DO THAT? Polynesians are the greatest navigators in known history - but did they have aircraft too?

Thanks for bringing that up. I've only watched one documentary about using the swells (wave patterns) and that was produced decades ago. It's disappointing that there are so many videos, and so little awareness of that skill. Otherwise how do you navigate when the sun ad the stars are clouded over day and night. That documentary pivoted around an old Polynesian taking his grandson (I think) out on an outrigger. He sat at the back and sat the young man out on the gunwale as close to the bow as possible and started coaching him on forgetting everything else and just feeling those swells coming and going under him. They they progressed to feeling for multiple patterns and determining that direction each was coming from and how they compared in strength. It was like watching somebody learn how to drum for the first time, keeping all those rhythms and timings in their mind. The old man could identify which body of land each pattern was coming from and how far away they were to determine their own position.

Also birds

I don''t appreciate you calling New Zealand Aotearoa. This is the modern trend, but it has no base in fact. Great Barrier Island was called Aotea by the maori.

Hee hee hee, can you see it now? americans having to get by with these traditions.... yuh no way. Most so out of touch america lives like a spreading disease. Many will agree

It’s because we all have similar ancestors.

Very interesting. In Tongan, we call it _Alotolu_ which means "the three rowers"

I think the Maori knew of Australia.

Maori would travel to Australia seasonally each year the Aboriginals called us the turtle dreamers because their arrival would coincide with the sea turtles egg laying cycle.

@@nicktorea4017 Hi Nick, do you know where I can read more about this? Regards, Andy

@@AndrewBlucher sorry I don't know it was told to me by my tipuna (grandparents/ancestors) sorry I can't help you another story was told to me of Tupaia guiding Cook here... Cook was about to give up trying to find NZ & return to England but was told about Tupaia who lived in Tahiti & could Navigate to NZ so Cook persuaded him to guide him which he did upon reaching these shores the locals were seen waving on the beaches and yelling out Tupaia Tupaia which highlighted the frequency of Tupaia's previous visits be reason of the locals familiarity with Tupaia. I really regret not paying more attention when I was younger all that knowledge has passed now.

@@nicktorea4017 Thanks Nick.

The algorithm gives you more of what you engage with :-) If I watch an F1 vid, it will offer me more of them. If I watch a Cat vid it'll offer more of them. More so if I like, comment, or subscribe.

Maori were very clever people. They invented modern trench warfare after all.

i agree. a key aspect of their exploration skill was the ability to tack into the prevailing wind in the search for islands, then confidently return home with the wind at their backs. there are so many islands in the western and central pacific it must have seemed like the ocean and islands stretched out forever.

Right? Or how they judged how there is land in a certain direction.

Sure! so a lot of what we know about navigation first came to light in David Lewis's "We the Navigators" - a book from the 1970s. I recommend that because it goes into a lot more detail than I do here, and mentions things that I didn't have time to mention

@@GuthlacYT thanks a lot.

Yes, I loved this video, right up until the last sentence.

@@TillyOrifice yes that last sentence was a weird and inaccurate statement

Yeah, that ending was weird. It was a throwback to the days when anthropologists claimed Polynesians drifted around the Pacific until they ran into land.

polynesians didn't go to madagascar, austronesians did.

It’s knowledge past on to us from our austronesian ancestors who migrated from Southeast Asia

Yes thanks to our austronesian ancestors!!! we made it🤙🏽

Nope, there were no Polynesians back then.

I believe that to be correct.

@@Wildflower27823 you are incorrect

We inherited our knowledge from our austronesian ancestors who traversed the Kai long ago

A three hour cruise.....

If he cannot come back for some women. it ain't going to lead to much