inoa: Fabienne Tielemans lā: 10 ‘Okakopa 2014 papa : ‘ōlelo Hawai’i A
This video is about the Navigators. Men who can sail the oceans and navigate their crew to the destination, using nothing than their memory, the waves and the stars to guide them. Mau Piailug, one of the last navigators left, wanted this movie, so he could show the importance of the navigators and their knowledge.
There are two kinds of men, according to Mau, the men who can only sail and the men who can sail and do magic. They are called Poe. You become a Poe through an initiation ceremony.
This video connects to navigation in Hawaii, because the Hawaiian Islands have the same culture. Captain Cooke discovered this over his twelve year of observation. He visited every major island group and the central group is called Polynesian, the group located in the west is called Melanesian and the group in the north is Micronesian. All these groups have similar dances and more important way of navigation.
There are only a few navigators left, and if that knowledge extinct, people must move to bigger islands because there is not sufficient food supply at the little islands like Satawal. Every time a navigator sails with his crew to another island to go fishing or something similar, he is responsible for every life on the canoe. So he makes all the decisions. If the Navigator wants to move direction, he looks at the ocean and he distinguishes the swells