Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors: Reviving Polynesian Voyaging (review)

Since the 1960s, Oceanic voyaging has become a well-developed area of anthropological inquiry. Most investigations of the subject have adopted one of three approaches. Ethnographic studies commenced with the work of William Alkire (Lamotrek Atoll and Inter-Island Socioeconomic Ties [1965]) and Thomas Gladwin (East is a Big Bird [1970]) in Micronesia, and with David Lewis's survey of maritime practices throughout the tropical Pacific (We, the Navigators [1972]). Around the same time, M Levinson, R Gerard Ward, and John W Webb pioneered the use of computer simulations (The Settlement of Polynesia [1973] and "The Settlement of the Polynesian Outliers," in Ben Finney's edited volume, Pacific Navigation and Voyaging [1976])—an approach that was later impressively applied by Geoffrey Irwin (The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific [1976])—to assess the relative probability of early settlement resulting from intentional, as opposed to accidental drift, voyages. The third line of inquiry involves experimental voyaging in reconstructed sailing canoes.

For four decades, Ben Finney has been a leading contributor to experimental voyaging. He was a founder of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, sailed on the first Hōkūle'a expedition from Hawai'i to Tahiti in 1976 , and has continued to be involved in voyaging studies through the present time. He has authored several critically important books and articles documenting the accomplishments of Hōkūle'a and other replica voyaging canoes. In addition, he has worked forNASA and the International Space University, applying the lessons of Polynesian voyaging to prospects for space travelin the twenty-first century.

Ostensibly, Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors is an account of a 1995 voyage by a fleet of six canoes, representing three Polynesian archipelagoes (Hawai'i, Cook Islands, and New Zealand/Aotearoa) from Nukuhiva in Te Henua 'Enana (the Marquesas) to O'ahu in Hawai'i. In fact, it does much more. The book presents a history of Polynesian voyaging studies, featuring debates that bear on such luminaries as Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck), Andrew Sharp, and Thor Heyerdahl. It summarizes our current understandings of Polynesian prehistory and lays out ongoing points of contention. And it assesses the revival of Polynesian voyaging in light of the "invention of tradition" literature, which became popular in the 1980s and '90s. Here, Finney argues that innovation and selective engagement are inextricably linked to notions of tradition and cultural revival in Polynesia and elsewhere.

The book discusses relations among widely scattered groups of Polynesians as depicted in mythology and folklore as well as in contemporary news accounts. It recapitulates tales of a grand prehistoric alliance stretching from French Polynesia through the Cooks to Rotuma and Aotearoa. It describes the alliance's putative breakup and the role of contemporary canoe voyaging in repairing long-severed connections. It explores the nature of contacts, old and new, between Pacific Islanders and indigenous peoples of America's northwest coast, and it addresses issues of environmental conservation. Finney poignantly describes Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson's futile search of his islands for large koa trees from which to build Hawai'iloa, a double-hulled voyaging canoe constructed of traditional materials, and how the hulls were eventually carved from spruce trees donated by the Tlingit of Alaska. Later, he tells of an enforced delay in making landfall at the end of the 1995 voyage, while the canoes were cleansed of Marquesan sand flies that threatened to infest Hawai'i's beaches.

The book evaluates contrasting features and performance characteristics of various hull and sail designs. Although the fleet was composed exclusively of double-hulled sailing canoes, the vessels differed significantly in length, beam, freeboard, relative weight and height of bow and stern, sail shape, and rigging. Finney explores the implications of such variations for speed, cargo capacity, durability, seaworthiness, comfort, and tacking ability.

The author devotes...