Polynesian women are practicing the ancient art of traditional navigation and inspiring seafaring communities around the globe to do the same.
By Brianna Randall, published in SAIL Magazine
On a recent voyage from Tahiti to Hawaii, Ka’iulani Murphy was starting to get nervous. She was nearing the end of the 2,400-mile upwind journey and couldn’t get an accurate fix on the boat’s position—not because the chartplotter was broken, but because it had been cloudy for the past few days. It was mid-June in the middle of the North Pacific and her last chance to see the Southern Cross (Hānaiakamalama) upright on the horizon just after sunset.
Murphy was the lead navigator for Hōkūle’a, a beloved 50-year-old traditional Polynesian sailing canoe that sparked a renaissance in wayfinding. This boat has no cockpit, no cabin, no compass, no GPS, no cell phone, not even a wristwatch aboard. What it does have is a 20-foot-wide rectangular deck stretched between two hulls, two red crab-claw sails, one long steering oar, some sleeping mats set beneath canvas tarps, and a dozen crew members determined to use nothing but nature to guide them safely home.
Murphy had barely slept in weeks, constantly observing the position of the sun and stars, the direction of the waves, the colors of the clouds, and the flight paths of birds. She was attuned to the slightest change in movement in the canoe. And she was fairly certain it was time to head west. If they waited too long to turn, Hōkūle’a would sail right past the Hawaiian islands. Murphy needed a clear view of the sky at sunset to see her cue to adjust course: when the distance between the top and bottom stars in the Southern Cross was equal to the distance between the bottom star and the horizon.
Murphy decided they would make the downwind turn that night, even if she couldn’t confirm their latitude. The sun set. The crew gathered around, waiting and watching and praying. At first, clouds obscured the horizon, hiding the constellation yet again.
“But then just for this magical moment,” Murphy recalls, “the clouds cleared and it was right there. We all got in our hand measuring, and it feels like you’re not alone, right? Like these are your kūpuna (ancestors) and they’re helping you out. They’re your friends up there in the sky, the stars. There are lots of moments like that, I would say.”
Murphy is one of dozens of women wayfinders who are reviving the ancient art of traditional navigation and voyaging. These women are sailing like their ancestors did a millennia ago, using clues from the environment to find a tiny island amid an immense watery wilderness. Not only are they teaching the next generations of Polynesians to continue this cultural tradition, they are inspiring people around the world to embrace navigating by nature.
Inviting Women Onboard
Murphy was mentored by the first wave of modern Hawaiian wayfinders, led by Nainoa Thompson, the CEO of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS). Thompson was the first Polynesian in 600 years to use traditional navigation techniques for long-distance, open-ocean voyaging. These skills, along with many other important cultural customs, were lost after Hawaii was colonized by westerners and then annexed by the U.S. in 1898. After PVS built Hōkūle’a in 1975, they searched high and low for someone who could teach them how to sail it the way their ancestors did. They found Mau Piailug, a master navigator from the island of Satawal in Micronesia, who agreed to train the Hawaiians.
In Micronesian culture, however, women are not allowed to step foot on a boat. PVS bucked this taboo from the get-go. Two women were part of Hōkūle’a’s return crew for the canoe’s inaugural voyage from Tahiti to Hawaii in 1976.
Murphy, part of the second wave of wayfinders to learn traditional navigation, says she remembers driving Piailug around when he visited Oahu to teach wayfinding.
“I asked him once, ‘What do you think about women and navigating?’ And he’s like, ‘When men get lost, women know the way.’ ” Murphy laughs, then adds, “The knowledge of navigation actually comes from a woman in Micronesian tradition. When they were pregnant with their child, they would sing so that the child in the womb is hearing these songs about navigation and voyaging.”