ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on experimental research on Polynesian canoes and navigation, particularly on the 1976 voyage of the Hokule'a from Hawaii to Tahiti and back. A. Fornander and Percy Smith were amateur scholars, fluent in Polynesian languages and conversant with Polynesian oral narratives. They focused particularly on the voyaging epics and based their schemes in large part on their often fanciful interpretations of the heroic stories. Virtually all authorities agree, however, that the Polynesians preferred double canoes for long-range voyaging, particularly migratory voyaging, because of their greater stability and carrying capacity. The primary navigation techniques Piailug used—steering by the stars, sun, and moon as well as by the wind and swells, and locating land through observation of land birds and other cues—were essentially the same as those a traditional Polynesian navigator would have used. The great voyaging canoes and the master navigators had disappeared from Polynesian waters—victims of modernization.
