navigator

Master navigator

Mau Piailug, the diminutive 63-year-old from Satawal Atoll, Yap, in the Federated States of Micronesia, is the brains behind the revival of traditional Polynesian voyaging. Without him, the May 13 arrival of flotilla of Hawaiian, Cook Islands and Aotearoa double hulled sailing canoes from French Polynesia would probably never have happened.

Mau was bom in 1932 at Satawal. In 1938 he started his training at sea.

Twelve years later, Mau graduated from the Carolinian school as the last ppalu or navigator in the age-old Pacific art and sciences of voyaging.

In the 19705, Mau sailed a Carolinian canoe from Satawal to Saipan, using ancient Micronesian methods of naviga tion. In 1973 Mau was selected to be master navigator of the Hawaiian voy aging canoe Hokule’a (Glad Star). As thousands of Hawaiians celebrated the return of the Polynesian flotilla at Keehi Lagoon, Honolulu, Mau seemed serene, his face shaded by a baseball cap.

Bedecked in leis, bespectacled, bare chested, the short man with an eagle tat tooed on his right biceps smiled tran quilly.

With the aid of an interpreter, Mau spoke in Satawalese, “Now we’re happy like we’re reborn again. Our navigation al skills are reborn again. I never forgot when I first came to Hawaii, there were no navigational skills. Today we’re happy. It’s like bringing back skills from those who passed away. We’re lucky we still have people who know navigation.

So let’s teach our young kids our skills.

Let’s not forget our skills so they won’t

die again.”