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Carolinian-Marianas Voyaging, Continuing the Tradition

about the islands of Micronesia


This is a peer reviewed contribution.
© Micronesian Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences ISSN 1449-7336
Letao Publishing, PO Box 3080, Albury NSW, Australia 48
MICRONESIAN
JOURNAL OF THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Vol. 1, nº 1-2 December 2002
CAROLINIAN-MARIANAS VOYAGING
Continuing the Tradition
William Flood
Saipan

Perhaps the greatest stimulant to the modern study of traditional navigation in the South Pacific came from Hawaii's Polynesian Voyaging Society (1973), which took as an early project the construction and sailing of Hawaiian doubledhulled canoes. When their first canoes were completed, the society turned to Satawal in the Carolinas for help in navigation. This article describes one trip from Satawal to the Marianas and the problems and pleasures encountered.


In 1972 Michael McCoy wrote a paper1 presciently-entitled, “A Renaissance in Carolinian-Marianas Voyaging.” This paper, subsequently included in a collection of “memoirs” published in 1976 in the Journal of the Polynesian Society, described McCoy's experiences living on Satawal at the time the ancient sea-route to the Marianas was re-opened.

According to written accounts from the 1700s2, this sea route, traditionally called the metawal wool, had been sailed by Carolinian sailors from before the “Spanish times.” But the route had been abandoned in more recent times, perhaps because of the cruelty of the Europeans who had claimed the Marianas, perhaps because of the convenience of more modern shipping that came with the Europeans and the copra trade3.

But though the route was not sailed for many generations, the traditional sailing directions, based on stars, currents and waves, were not forgotten. In the early 1800s several canoes from the Carolines journeyed to Saipan and Guam after typhoons had devastated their atolls 4. At that time the Spanish had removed all of the Chamorro inhabitants of Saipan and Tinian and moved them to Guam, so the Carolinians were permitted to settle on what were then uninhabited islands.

It does not appear that these voyages continued during the Spanish and subsequent German or Japanese occupations of Saipan. Neither residents of Saipan nor Satawal remembered any voyages during the first 60 years of the last century5.

This all began to change in 1969 when New Zealand physician David Lewis sailed his ketch, the Isbjorn, throughout Micronesia and Melanesia, interviewing men who still had knowledge of traditional navigation. On tiny Polowat Lewis found the navigator Hippour who agreed to navigate Lewis' ship the 500-mile trip from Polowat to Saipan using only the traditional navigation he had been taught. Hippour had never been to Saipan before, and this trip had not been sailed by anyone in living memory, but he had been taught the star courses and felt confident in his ability. His confidence was well placed. The Isbjorn arrived a week later on Saipan6.

The following year Hippour's feat was repeated by two half-brothers from nearby Satawal, Repunglap and Repunglug. This time the trip was made in a traditional canoe, and was likewise done without any “modern” navigational aids7.

In 1971 a group from Satawal planned yet another trip, but it was delayed by the death of Martin Raiuk, the paramount chief8. Another attempt was made in 1972, this time with two canoes, one (voyaging2)


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