Dissertation Research: The Revival of Indigenous Navigation in the Marshall Islands

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Navigators in Oceania developed comprehensive systems for guiding their canoes across the ocean out of sight of land using non-instrumental methods that were based on observations and perceptions of environmental phenomena. Oceanic spatial orientation systems are based largely on the rising and setting points of stars, which serve as directional bearings to specific islands. Calibrated to this celestial framework, however, are other, less well-known methods of spatial orientation based on characteristic wind and wave patterns that have been developed into comprehensive systems of navigation within a few island societies. In particular, Marshall Island navigators remotely sense islands by detecting distinctive ocean swell transformations and then use these ephemeral 'landmarks' to guide their canoes. This system of navigation survives in the memory of elders who formerly learned and practiced navigation. They recently formed a community group called Waan Aelon in Majel (WAM; Canoes of the Marshall Islands) to revive canoe building and ocean sailing, and are currently working with an expert navigator to document traditional navigation and pass it on to the younger generation. This dissertation research by a cultural anthropologist from the University of Hawaii-Manoa investigates how Marshallese navigators orient themselves at sea. It will generate and validate a cultural expert's model of indigenous navigation by comparing it to an oceanographic wave model and then testing it at sea, document the processes of the revival of navigational knowledge, and determine the extent of intra-cultural variation in navigational knowledge through the application of the cultural consensus model.The broader significance of this research, in addition to integrating the results into curricula for WAM's school of navigation and Marshallese schools, is an understanding of the decline and resurgence of indigenous knowledge in the context of a cultural revival of canoe building, sailing and navigation. This knowledge will provide policy makers in the Marshall Islands and throughout Oceania an example of the sustainability of employing traditional canoes for fishing and local transport.