Portal:Oceania/Selected article/September, 2008

Polynesian navigation was a system of navigation used by Polynesians to routinely make long voyages across thousands of miles of open ocean. Navigators traveled to small inhabited islands using only their own senses and knowledge passed by oral tradition from navigator to apprentice.

In order to locate directions at various times of day and year, navigators memorized important facts: the motion of specific stars, and where they would rise and set on the horizon; weather; times of travel; wildlife species; directions of swells on the ocean, and how the crew would feel their motion; colors of the sea and sky; and angles for approaching harbors.

These wayfinding techniques along with outrigger canoe construction methods, were kept as guild secrets. Generally each island maintained a guild of navigators who had very high status; in times of famine or difficulty these navigators could trade for aid or evacuate people to neighboring islands. List of selected articles