Sailing by the stars: Wa’a ceremony marks the start of the world's largest indigenous Pacific festival
13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture 2024, Hawai'i
By Kalpana Nizarat
At a time when the primary belief in the global north was that the world was flat, indigenous Pacific navigators chartered our vast Pacific Ocean using the stars and indigenous technologies as their guide.
Mammoth canoes were built by hand and are believed to have carried thousands of people across the vast Blue Pacific.
Indigenous navigation knowledge has influenced contemporary voyaging knowledge such as the sacred knowledge held by Pacific women who wove the sails of these great canoes.
The peculiarities relating to hardwoods and materials for lashing of hulls were often place-based closed knowledge.
The proof of the tremendous boatbuilding and wayfinding skills is evidenced in the sturdy long-distance vessels with the capacity to traverse into battles and newfound lands.
Navigation and stewardship of our vast geography has been informed by thousands of years of indigenous practices and cultural relationships that pre-date the demarcation of the subregions Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
The regeneration of indigenous technologies using the wind and stars to access remote communities and islands across the Pacific is a longstanding transport.
In those communities, where navigation was banned through colonialism and/or Christianity, the continued practice of this knowledge system speaks directly to the resistance and resilience of Pacific peoples who saw value in ensuring intergenerational transfer of knowledge, even under the threat of severe punishment.
The Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture (FestPAC), recognised as the largest indigenous Pacific festival in the world, is paramount to genuine engagement across and between islands for the sharing of knowledge and skills, as well as the safeguarding of these practices in meaningful ways.
FestPAC 2024 began with the welcoming of delegations who have traversed our connected ocean with the Wa’a or traditional canoe ceremony.
The sacred welcoming ceremony included traditional chants and performances to welcome Pacific delegates to the shores of Hawai’i.
A total of 30 Wa’a canoes glided through the waters of O’ahu at dawn, bringing traditional cultural custodians and representatives from across the Pacific region. The Wa’a ceremony and ho’okupu (gift exchange), anchored the indigenous spirit of the land of Hawai’i and the connection between Kānaka Maoli to their wider Pacific family.
“For Hawai’i, voyaging and learning about our culture specifically related to voyaging takes us back to the 1970s where we had this desire to reclaim our knowledge and our abilities to navigate.”
“We built this Wa’a called the Hōkūleʻa but then when it was built, we realised that we didn’t have a navigator. There were no navigators here in Hawai’i, so we went to the Pacific to look for people who could teach us how to navigate.”. Pacific navigators from Micronesia connected with Hawai’i and helped regenerate the traditional practices that had been lost.
The people of Satawal in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) who live more than 6,000 kilometres away connected with voyaging teams of Hōkūleʻa and the journey of regeneration began.
Kahapea-Tanner expressed her deepest appreciation to the people of Satawal for sharing the traditional knowledge of voyaging to assist Hawai'i in reviving the art of navigation and wayfinding which has been supported since the 1970’s.
The wayfinding genealogical connection began with Pius “Papa Mau” Piailug, a master navigator, who at the time was one of the few remaining people on earth who held traditional, indigenous knowledge of wayfinding methods using the stars and the sea for open-ocean voyaging. He shared this knowledge to help regenerate these indigenous practices and reconnect Hawai’ians to their ocean.
“He (“Papa Mau”) gave us back our eyes and so if it wasn’t for this relationship between Hawai’i and the Pacific, specifically Micronesia and Satawal, we would still be blind. We wouldn’t be able to see, and we wouldn’t be able to navigate and it's so important that we share that message with all our brothers and sisters from the Pacific who are here for FestPAC13,” she added.
Imparting wayfinding to our young people
Carrying on the legacy of Late Papa Mau is his son Antonio Piailug, a delegate of the CNMI participating in FestPAC13 to impart knowledge and skills on navigation and wayfinding.
“I believe it’s very important to pass on the knowledge and skills on voyaging to the younger generation because it is our heritage and our way of traveling, even in today’s day and age, it is one of the most effective methods of transport in the Pacific,” Antonio said.
The art form of boat building and navigation is deeply anchored in traditional practices that Piailug continues to nurture through the Pacific and CNMI youth, looking to the past to guide our future.
“The building of the canoe itself requires a lot of knowledge and expertise. For example, in CNMI, our canoes are mostly made from carving the breadfruit tree. Our sail is made from Pandanus weaved together,” Antonio highlighted.
“We have always been one with our natural environment and always used natural products from around us to build and sustain ourselves and that is why we also teach our younger generations to safeguard our natural environment as well,” he further shared.
Antonio currently has 16 students from CNMI who are learning the traditional voyaging, canoe-building and navigation tactics. He is at FestPAC to connect, inspire and continue to regenerate the forms of traditional canoe building and navigation.
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