tes, they need to know which way to go, and without the western technology, many thought navigating through the Pacific was impossible. In 1973, the Polynesian Voyaging Society was formed to raise money for a voyage from Hawai’ito Tahiti, in which a Hokule’a would be reconstructed in it’s original form. The Hokule’a was rebuilt using ancient techniques and artifacts. The ship was navigated without western technology. As their navigation system, a man named Mau Pialug, “was to use the rising points of the stars, supplemented by observation of the sun, moon, and the ocean swells, as a natural compass to guild the canoe on it’s curving course. Tocomplete such a crossing in a reconstructed voyage canoe would therefore challenge a key tenet of Sharp’s theory.” The voyage was a success. The voyage had two goals in mind: “first, to test Polynesian sailing technology and navigational methods over prehistoric migrations and voyaging routes in order to gain a better understanding of the extent in which intentional voyaging played a role in the colonization of Polynesia and subsequent inter-island relationships” and the second was to “gain first ahs knowledge and appreciation of the oceanic technology and achievements of their ancestors”.The successful voyage wasn’t as simple as it might have sound. The voyage had many difficulties that it had to over come. One setback was trying to find someone that can still navigate with the stars. That was their only way of proving Sharp’s theory of accidental, to be wrong. Using the stars as navigation was not widely practices anymore. Yet to their fate, they found “ a traditional Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian atoll of Satawal, one of the few Polynesian islands where the traditional long distance navigation is still practiced”.Another problem they had, was the trade winds. One of the first explorers of...
