We, The Navigators
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We, The Navigators
''We, the Navigators, The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific'' is a 1972 book by the British-born New Zealand doctor David Lewis, which explains the principles of Micronesian and Polynesian navigation through his experience of placing his boat under control of several traditional navigators on long ocean voyages. Synopsis Introduction David Lewis, after circumnavigating the world in a catamaran, decided to test his understanding of Polynesian navigation techniques by sailing the 2200 miles from Tahiti to New Zealand without any modern instruments (except the smallest of charts and a sky map). After arriving with a landfall only 26 miles in error, he learned that there were contemporary sailors in the Santa Cruz and Caroline Islands who still sailed large distances by the traditional methods and obtained support from the Australian National University to visit and sail with them. He did this in a 39-foot gaff ketch, ''Isbjorn'', which he placed under the direction of ...
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David Lewis (adventurer)
David Henry Lewis (1917 – 23 October 2002) was a sailor, adventurer, doctor, and scholar of Polynesian culture. He is best known for his studies on the traditional systems of navigation used by the Pacific Islanders. His studies, published in the book ''We, the Navigators'', made these navigational methods known to a wide audience and helped to inspire a revival of traditional voyaging methods in the South Pacific. Early life Lewis was born in Plymouth, England, and raised in New Zealand and Rarotonga. He was sent to the Polynesian school in Rarotonga, where he apparently developed his appreciation for Polynesian identity and culture. He remained a New Zealander throughout his life, though he eventually retired to Queensland. After an adventurous childhood and teenage years including mountaineering and skiing in New Zealand, and a multi-hundred mile kayak journey, he traveled to England in 1938 for medical training at the University of Leeds, and served in the British arm ...
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Compass Rose
A compass rose, sometimes called a wind rose, rose of the winds or compass star, is a figure on a compass, map, nautical chart, or monument used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions (north, east, south, and west) and their intermediate points. It is also the term for the graduated markings found on the traditional magnetic compass. Today, a form of compass rose is found on, or featured in, almost all navigation systems, including nautical charts, non-directional beacons (NDB), VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) systems, global-positioning systems (GPS), and similar equipment. Types Linguistic anthropological studies have shown that most human communities have four points of cardinal direction. The names given to these directions are usually derived from either locally-specific geographic features (e.g. "towards the hills", "towards the sea") or from celestial bodies (especially the sun) or from atmospheric features (winds, temperature). Most mobile populations ...
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American Anthropologist
''American Anthropologist'' is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), published quarterly by Wiley. The "New Series" began in 1899 under an editorial board that included Franz Boas, Daniel G. Brinton, and John Wesley Powell. The current editor-in-chief is Elizabeth Chin (ArtCenter College of Design). The journal publishes research articles from all four subfields of anthropology as well as book reviews and obituaries, and includes sections on Public Anthropologies, Multimodal Anthropologies, and World Anthropologies. The journal also maintains a website with essays, virtual issues, teaching resources, and supplementary material for print articles. Past editors F. W. Hodge (1899–1910) John R. Swanton (1911) F. W. Hodge (1912–1914) Pliny E. Goddard (1915–1920) John R. Swanton (1921–1923) Robert H. Lowie (1924–1933) Leslie Spier (1934–1938) Ralph Linton (1939–1944) J. Alden Mason (1945–1948) Melville J. Herskovits ...
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Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The Seattle metropolitan area's population is 4.02 million, making it the 15th-largest in the United States. Its growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 makes it one of the nation's fastest-growing large cities. Seattle is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington. It is the northernmost major city in the United States, located about south of the Canadian border. A major gateway for trade with East Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling . The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequ ...
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Easter Island
Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called ''moai'', which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park. Experts disagree on when the island's Polynesian inhabitants first reached the island. While many in the research community cited evidence that they arrived around the year 800, there is compelling evidence presented in a 2007 study that places their arrival closer to 1200. The inhabitants created a thriving and industrious culture, as evidenced by the island's numerous enormous stone ''moai'' and other artifacts. However, land clearing for cultivation and the introduction of the Polynesian rat led to gradual deforest ...
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Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state geographically located within the tropics. Hawaii comprises nearly the entire Hawaiian archipelago, 137 volcanic islands spanning that are physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania. The state's ocean coastline is consequently the fourth-longest in the U.S., at about . The eight main islands, from northwest to southeast, are Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lānai, Kahoolawe, Maui, and Hawaii—the last of these, after which the state is named, is often called the "Big Island" or "Hawaii Island" to avoid confusion with the state or archipelago. The uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands make up most of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the United States' largest protected ...
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Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Australia. Divided into two parts, ''Tahiti Nui'' (bigger, northwestern part) and ''Tahiti Iti'' (smaller, southeastern part), the island was formed from volcanic activity; it is high and mountainous with surrounding coral reefs. Its population was 189,517 in 2017, making it by far the most populous island in French Polynesia and accounting for 68.7% of its total population. Tahiti is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity and an overseas country of the French Republic. The capital of French Polynesia, Papeete, is located on the northwest coast of Tahiti. The only international airport in the region, Faaā International Airport, is on Tahiti near Papeete. Tahiti was originally settled by Pol ...
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Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republika sang Filipinas * ibg, Republika nat Filipinas * ilo, Republika ti Filipinas * ivv, Republika nu Filipinas * pam, Republika ning Filipinas * krj, Republika kang Pilipinas * mdh, Republika nu Pilipinas * mrw, Republika a Pilipinas * pag, Republika na Filipinas * xsb, Republika nin Pilipinas * sgd, Republika nan Pilipinas * tgl, Republika ng Pilipinas * tsg, Republika sin Pilipinas * war, Republika han Pilipinas * yka, Republika si Pilipinas In the recognized optional languages of the Philippines: * es, República de las Filipinas * ar, جمهورية الفلبين, Jumhūriyyat al-Filibbīn is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It is situated in the western Pacific Ocean and consists of around 7,641 islands t ...
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Micronesians
The Micronesians or Micronesian peoples are various closely related ethnic groups native to Micronesia, a region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They are a part of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, which has an Urheimat in Taiwan. Ethno-linguistic groups classified as Micronesian include the Carolinians (Northern Mariana Islands), Chamorros (Guam & Northern Mariana Islands), Chuukese, Mortlockese, Namonuito, Paafang, Puluwat and Pollapese ( Chuuk), I-Kiribati (Kiribati), Kosraeans (Kosrae), Marshallese (Marshall Islands), Nauruans ( Nauru), Palauans, Sonsorolese (Palau), Pohnpeians, Pingelapese, Ngatikese, Mwokilese (Pohnpei), and Yapese, Ulithian, Woleian, Satawalese (Yap). Origins Based on the current scientific consensus, the Micronesians are considered, by linguistic, archaeological, and human genetic evidence, to be a subset of the sea-migrating Austronesian people, who include the Polynesians and the Melanesians. Austronesians were the first people to i ...
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Tasman Engraving Of Tongan Tongiaki
Tasman most often refers to Abel Tasman (1603–1659), Dutch explorer. Tasman may also refer to: Animals and plants * Tasman booby * Tasman flax-lily * Tasman parakeet (other) * Tasman starling * Tasman whale People * Tasman (name), a name of Dutch origin, including a list of people with the name Places New Zealand * Mount Tasman, in the Southern Alps of South Island * Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere, at the northern end of South Island * Tasman Glacier, in the Southern Alps of South Island * Tasman Lake, formed by recent melting and retreat of the Tasman Glacier * Tasman Region, a region and a district of New Zealand in the north of South Island * Tasman River, flowing from Tasman Lake and contributed to by other glacial rivers Tasmania, Australia * Tasman Fracture, an ocean trench southwest of Tasmania * Tasman Island, an island off the southeast coast of the Tasman Peninsula * Tasman National Park, at the south end of the Tasman Peninsula * Tasman Outflow, ...
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Etak (navigation)
''etak'' is a word of Micronesian origin for a distinctive cognitive and mnemonic approach to oceanic navigation and orientation involving a notional reference point or "island", called ''etak'', and triangulation based on it. The system under that name was found in the Caroline Islands, and the literal meaning of ''etak'' is "refuge". Alfred Gell described it as a way of encoding dead reckoning applied to sea journeys. It is an example of a dynamic cognitive map. Technique The ''etak'' is used abstractly, because its typical distance from the route taken exceeds that to the horizon. Star sightings are used to refer to its current bearings from the boat. The navigational stars that are referred to therefore change during a leg of a voyage with a given ''etak''. This phenomenon leads to the use of a relative frame, in which the boat is considered to be at rest, while the ''etak'' moves. Equivalently, the ''etak'' is the common point of a pencil of lines, based at the vertex of a t ...
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Leeway
Leeway is the amount of drift motion to leeward of an object floating in the water caused by the component of the wind vector that is perpendicular to the object’s forward motion.Bowditch. (1995). The American Practical Navigator. Pub. No. 9. 1995 Edition. Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic/Topographic Center. Bethesda, MD. p.116. The National Search and Rescue Supplement to the International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue Manual defines leeway as "the movement of a search object through water caused by winds blowing against exposed surfaces".National Search and Rescue Committee, (2000). "U.S. National Search and Rescue Supplement to the International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue Manual," Washington D.C. However, the resultant total motion of an object is made up of the leeway drift and the movement of the upper layer of the ocean caused by the surface currents, tidal currents and ocean currents.Allen, (2005). Leeway Divergence. Government Report pr ...
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