THE FIRST HAWAIIANS:

DISCOVERING THE CANOE HOKULEA

by Lee Foster

"Who were the original Hawaiians?" and "How did they get to Hawaii?" are beguiling questions a traveler can raise.

Answers can be gleaned in Honolulu by visiting the Hawaiian Maritime Center and seeing the re-created deep-sea voyaging canoe, the Hokulea, or its sister ship, the Hawaii Loa, if they are not out voyaging. A traveler will be fortunate who stops in at the Polynesian Voyaging Society office in the Maritime Center and inquires if the visionary president of the society, Nainoa Thompson, the great open-ocean navigator, happens to be giving a public talk. He is an inspiring person to hear. (Besides seeing the ships and listening to Nainoa, take a look at the ethnography exhibits at the Bishop Museum, the major cultural museum in Honolulu.)

The phenomenon that humans ever reached Hawaii ranks with the major accomplishments of mankind.

Hawaii is one of the most remote places on Earth. The islands are fully 2,000 miles from the nearest inhabited places in the South Pacific. It takes five hours by jet to get there today from the South Pacific or from the U.S. mainland. Imagine what time it took for a sailing craft from the South Pacific, headed north to an unknown destination.

The original inhabitants of Hawaii are believed to have come from the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific about 250-450 A.D. Later migrations probably came from Tahiti. It is believed that the Tahitians had the skills to make the journey in both directions.

The skills of navigation and the personal self-confidence that allowed these people to sail in relatively small deep-sea voyaging canoes over this huge distance are inspiring.

One wonders how many ill-fated canoes missed the Hawaiian Islands and disappeared anonymously in the abyss of history and the ocean.

On a relatively small double-hull canoe these explorers would have needed to carry their water, food, seeds to plant for more food, tools, livestock and familiar animals (such as pigs, chickens, and dogs), and sufficient child-bearers to reproduce themselves.

The historic voyages have been re-created by a canoe called the Hokulea, now a cultural icon at the Hawaiian Maritime Center.

The Hokulea has made the voyage several times, usually without any modern navigation aids, manned by modern Hawaiians, after being built in 1975 by a group of aficionados known as The Polynesian Voyaging Society. In 1976 the Hokulea sailed down to Tahiti and back, a feat it repeated in 1980. In 1985-1987 the double-hull canoe made a voyage of discovery throughout the South Pacific, visiting many remote islands. During a 1995 voyage the Hokulea made record time going to Tahiti and Micronesia.

Hokulea means "Star of Joy," after a star, Arcturus, that hangs over the islands.

Any traveler can look at the Hokulea or its sister ship, the Hawaii Loa, if the ships are not in drydock for rot repair or out voyaging. Their home is at the Maritime Center, behind another historic ship, the sugar-carrier known as the Falls of Clyde. Within the adjacent museum at the Maritime Center, you can get a wand interpreter and hear many thoughts about the Hokulea and other exhibits.

The Hokulea has exerted a dramatic influence on the resurgence of pride and self-confidence in Hawaiians and South Pacific Islanders. Nainoa Thompson, now 49, speaks eloquently to this point.

"We built the Hokulea in a dark period," says Nainoa. "Hawaiians were not then proud of who they were. We were navigating 'change' as much as the oceans."

Nainoa recalls his conflicted youth, when his grandmother spoke with pride of her own grandfather, an independent fisherman, and then averted her eyes as she discussed the more recent Hawaiian period, when people were beaten with sticks for simply being Hawaiian.

"Hawaiian had a negative connotation," adds Nainoa. "People tried to wash the brown off their skin."

Young Nainoa came under the influence of an artist, Herb Kane, who was obsessed with images of the great open-hulled canoes that the ancients must have used to cross the oceans. Kane instilled in Thompson and others the dream of building such a canoe, re-creating the voyages, and raising the pride of the people over the feats involved in these monumental voyages and the many skills required to make them. The ocean is a severe and unforgiving adversary for anyone who ventures out unprepared.

"We dreamed that the voyages would bring dignity to people," says Nainoa. "We could take our anger about our self-image and put it to a positive use. Our language and culture were asleep, but perhaps the re-created voyages would wake us all up."

A South Seas navigator who still had the skills, named Mau Piailug, was enlisted to help. The first 2500-mile voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti was successful in 31 days, but Mau resigned because he felt the crew did not have the discipline required. Nainoa himself, full of fear, was a leader of the voyage back to Hawaii, which was made without incident. On the next voyage south, the canoe capsized while still in Hawaiian waters and a legendary surfer and lifeguard among the crew, Eddie Aikau, died. A dark period of introspection followed. Was this voyaging worth the risk? Out of this traumatic time a new leadership team emerged with far greater navigational skills.

"The voyaging canoe was like a needle making a lei of the islands, the flowers of the South Pacific," says Nainoa.

The navigational skills, archaeology, and modern genetics that are a part of this story are all intriguing.

It is believed that the sweet potato came onto the scene from South America, so there must have been some contact, but the migration probably came from Asia.

Recent genetic studies tend to confirm that Hawaiians came east from Asia through the South Pacific and up to Hawaii. Some Haida natives in Alaska are believed to be part of this genetic heritage. The logs for the new canoe, the Hawaii Loa, were contributed by Alaska natives.

It is believed that voyages from the South Pacific ended in roughly the 14^th century, partially by a decree of rulers to preserve their blood lines as the dominant class. There were also resource limitations in the islands as populations grew. Mounting huge voyaging expeditions was costly.

"All the science and human factors work together in the Hokulea story," says Nainoa. "There has been a huge resurgence of pride in these Pacific peoples, both in Hawaii and in the South Pacific. They now have a sense of their historic accomplishments, a reverence for their past."

The size of the Pacific Ocean within the so-called Polynesian Triangle, with New Zealand, Hawaii, and Easter Islands as the corners, is simply immense. Finding small islands in this vast 10-million square miles of sea was a remarkable feat.

Because of their careful observations of nature, the ancient sailors had some confidence that there would be land to the north, somewhere. One of their indicators was a land bird, the golden plover. They noted that the plover could only set down on land, not at sea. The people of the Marquesas saw that the golden plover migrated to their islands from the north, but did not nest there. Rather, the birds disappeared annually to the north. Therefore, the assumption was that they nested somewhere to the north, on land. Modern bird observers now know that the golden plover flies fully 6,000 miles north to nest in Alaska, way beyond Hawaii.

Knowing there was land up there somewhere, the navigators still had to be able to reckon direction to go north. They developed a method of navigation known as 'wayfinding,' totally dependent on natural signs. Nainoa Thompson has these same uncanny skills.

The wayfinding navigator must be able to guide the canoe without any instruments beyond his own mind. At dawn and dusk, of course there is the rising and setting sun. But at midday, the direction of the waves and swells would be the key. And at night, the rising and setting positions of about 210 key stars were critical. As people with an oral rather than a written tradition, with huge capacities for memory, remembering the stars was a critical knowledge to master.

Other clues would be the way clouds form near islands, especially around islands with peaks. The presence of birds, such as boobies, would also be evidence that islands were near. The flight path of birds would be a directional clue. The content of drifting debris would be another sign as to the direction of and existence of islands. How long would a drifting leaf remain green before deteriorating? How many days had it drifted? Given the wind and wave speed, how far away was the source of the green leaf?

One also wonders what motivated these people to venture north toward Hawaii. The early assumption was that war, overpopulation, and strife may have stimulated them to seek new territory. But the planning required to launch the canoes and the huge amount of social cooperation required for the venture suggest that there were more positive motivations. The spirit of adventure may have been one of the motivating factors.

Outfitting the canoe was a complex task. Perhaps 20 people traveled on these small double-hull craft. At least five couples would have been needed to produce offspring not adversely inbred. The voyage would last about 30 days.

The threat of becoming becalmed in the middle of the ocean was real and would have been fatal.

Captain James Cook, the Englishman who "discovered" Hawaii for Europeans in 1778, certainly had his equals among the many daring Polynesian navigators who "discovered" Hawaii from their bases in the Marquesas or Tahiti.

More insights into the South Pacific Islanders who settled Hawaii can be gleaned at the Bishop Museum, the major ethnographic facility of the Pacific, documenting early Hawaii and all the islands that contributed to its development.

Every travel destination has ways of enlarging our imagination if we can only discern them. The Hokulea is one of the major Hawaii contributions to our sensibility. A visitor can see in the Hokulea a renewed sense of the grandeur of the human spirit, the spirit of adventure inherent in mankind, and the willingness of the human animal to take on unimaginable risks.

The next time you spend five hours in an airplane flying to Hawaii, consider what a 2,000-mile canoe ride to Hawaii from the South Pacific would have been like, especially if you had no idea of when you would ever see land again.

For the modern air traveler, the islands suddenly jump out, magically and improbably in the middle of the sea. Imagine the intense emotions of a Marquesan about 250-400 A.D. who spotted land after 30 days at sea during a voyage into the unknown.

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THE FIRST HAWAIIANS: IF YOU SEEK THEM OUT

The organization managing the Hokulea and Hawaii Loa is the Polynesian Voyaging Society, whose office is at Pier 7 in the Hawaii Maritime Center. They will know, on any given day, the precise location of the two voyaging canoes. Contact them in advance of a visit at 808/536-8405, www.pvs.hawaii.org.

For further information about any aspect of Hawaiian travel, contact the Hawaiian Visitors Bureau, 2270 Kalakaua Avenue, Suite 801, Honolulu, HI 96815, 808/923-1811, www.gohawaii.com.

This article was written by Lee Foster of Foster Travel Publishing. Contact him at his website www.fostertravel.com or via email at lee@fostertravel.com. Copyright Lee Foster.

Lee Foster's most recent travel guidebooks are Northern California History Weekends (Globe Pequot), which won a Lowell Thomas Award, and Adventure Guide to Northern California (Hunter Publishing).

Lee Foster's new literary book is Travels in an American Imagination: The Spiritual Geography of Our Time.

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