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

大洋洲的航海家开发了一套综合系统，利用基于对环境现象的观察和感知的非仪器方法，引导他们的独木舟越过海洋，离开陆地的视线。海洋空间定位系统主要基于星星的起落点，作为特定岛屿的方向方位。然而，与这个天体框架校准的还有其他一些不太知名的基于特征风和波浪模式的空间定位方法，这些方法已在一些岛屿社会发展成为综合的导航系统。特别是，马绍尔岛的导航员通过探测独特的海浪变化来远程感知岛屿，然后使用这些短暂的“地标”来引导他们的独木舟。这种导航系统在以前学习和实践导航的老年人的记忆中幸存下来。他们最近在马耶尔成立了一个名为Waan Aelon的社区团体（WAM；马绍尔群岛独木舟），以恢复独木舟建造和远洋航行，目前正在与一位专家航海家合作，记录传统的航行并将其传递给年轻一代。夏威夷大学马诺阿分校的一名文化人类学家的论文研究调查了马绍尔航海家如何在海上定位自己。它将生成并验证文化专家的土著航海模型，将其与海洋学波浪模型进行比较，然后在海上进行测试，记录航海知识复兴的过程，并通过应用文化共识模型确定航海知识的文化内差异程度。除了将研究结果纳入WAM航海学院和马绍尔学校的课程外，这项研究的更广泛意义在于，在独木舟建造、航海和航海文化复兴的背景下，了解土著知识的衰落和复兴。这些知识将为马绍尔群岛和整个大洋洲的决策者提供一个使用传统独木舟捕鱼和当地运输的可持续性的例子。

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.