How did Polynesian wayfinders navigate the Pacific Ocean?

The early Polynesian voyagers were some of the best wayfinders in history (Fig. 8.3). They were able to find their way across vast reaches of the Pacific ocean basin navigating by the sun, stars, and other natural cues.

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How did Polynesian explorers view the ocean?

As the voyages became longer, they developed a highly sophisticated navigation system based on observations of the stars, the ocean swells, the flight patterns of birds and other natural signs to find their way over the open ocean.

How did Polynesian wayfinders navigate the Pacific ocean Alan Tamayose and Shantell de Silva?

How did they do it? Studying celestial bodies, birds, the wind, clouds, ocean currents and wave patterns provided ancient Polynesian wayfinders with vital information that helped them navigate the Pacific. See how in this animated TED-Ed lesson by Alan Tamayose and Shantell De Silva.

What did the Polynesians use to navigate between the islands in the Pacific ocean quizlet?

How did the Polynesians navigate the Pacific? They used natural methods such as using the stars and ocean currents as well as wind.

How did Polynesians navigate using birds?

Bird Observation

It is also known that Polynesians used shore sighting birds, bringing with them Frigate birds, who refuse to land on the water as their feathers would become waterlogged. When voyagers thought they were close to land they would release the bird. It would either fly towards land or return to the canoe.

How did the Polynesians navigate the Pacific?

When sailing out on the open seas in their dugout voyaging canoes, Polynesians would navigate by using the stars and all of the elements around them. In addition to following the path of the stars, navigators would use the currents and wave patterns to determine their direction and heading.

How did the Polynesians find Hawaii?

The Hawaiian Islands were first settled as early as 400 C.E., when Polynesians from the Marquesas Islands, 2000 miles away, traveled to Hawaii’s Big Island in canoes. Highly skilled farmers and fishermen, Hawaiians lived in small communities ruled by chieftains who battled one another for territory.

How do you navigate in the ocean?

1. To figure out where you are, look around and locate three charted landmarks like navigational aids, bridges, or water towers on shore.
2. Point your compass (which means pointing your boat, unless you have a handheld compass) at them one at a time.
3. Record the bearing.

How do Maoris navigate?

Te kapehu whetū – the Māori star compass – divides the 360 degrees around a canoe in the open ocean into different whare (houses). The location of these houses depends on where the sun, moon and stars set and rise. The navigator attempts to keep the canoe on a course relative to these observations.

When did the Polynesians explore the ocean?

The Polynesians

Rough estimates surrounding the dates of their voyages place their explorations between 1500 BC and 1000AD. New Guinea is thought to be one of the first places they settled, followed by the Solomon Islands, to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand.

What types of landmarks did the Polynesians use?

Some Polynesian waterfalls belong to the tallest in the world – e.g. Olo’upena Falls, Browne Falls, Sutherland Falls. Ancient shrines and ceremonial sites – ahu, marae, me’ae, heiau and others. The distinct culture of Polynesians has created some of the most interesting megalithic monuments in the world.

How do you navigate a boat on a river?

Right and Left Banks of a River are designated as such by a downstream direction. So, left or port is determined by your downstream direction. Still facing the direction of the stream, the right side is the starboard side.

What are the directions on a boat?

1. The bow is the front of a boat.
2. The stern is the back.
3. The Port is the left side (when you face forward)
4. The Starboard is the right side.
5. Hit the deck: lay down on your stomach (or if players don’t want to get dirty, they can crouch down)
6. Attention on deck: salute and yell, “Aye, aye captain!”

What is the Polynesian expansion?

Between c. 700 and 1756, Polynesian people settled thousands of islands across a wide area of the Pacific Ocean. This region is now known as the Polynesian Triangle. As they spread throughout the region, Polynesians formed unique societies on each of the islands they settled.

How do you navigate a boat with a compass?

What did the Polynesians contribute to ocean exploration?

They had a keen sense of ocean currents and variations in bird and sea life in different places in the Pacific. They also were among the first people to use astronomical observations of the stars to help them navigate across the ocean.

How did Polynesians get fresh water?

Water was carried in gourds and sections of bamboo and stored along with drinking coconuts wherever space or ballast needs dictated.

How did the Polynesians migrate?

Scientists agree that early Polynesians were able to migrate across vast stretches of ocean in canoes, what has been a cause of curiosity, however, was how they managed to make their way to places that would have entailed sailing into the wind.

How did Māori use wind navigate?

Compasses were also used to chart the winds. Navigators steered their canoes toward a star on the horizon. When that star rose too high in the sky or set beneath the horizon, another would be chosen, and so on through the night.

Which star did the Polynesians use to navigate the ocean?

This type of celestial navigation has been used, along with wind direction and wave observation, to find small islands in the vast world ocean. The Polynesian voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa (Fig. 8.3) uses the Hawaiian star compass (Fig.

How did the Polynesians find islands?

But the most useful way to find land was by looking at the habits of birds. Polynesian navigators would remember which species of birds would wander all over the ocean versus the birds that are land-based. Each bird species also had a flight range, meaning the birds fly away from the land at a minimum distance.

How did Māori navigate the waka?

As part of Matariki activities, children explored early Polynesian navigation and Te Kāpehu Whetū – the Māori Star Compass. The waka (canoe) in the open ocean uses the horizon as a compass, the 360 degrees around it divided into quarters named after the four winds.

How did Kupe navigate NZ?

According to the people of Ngāpuhi (tribe of the Far North), the first explorer to reach New Zealand was the intrepid ancestor, Kupe. Using the stars and ocean currents as his navigational guides, he ventured across the Pacific on his waka hourua (voyaging canoe) from his ancestral Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki.

Why did Polynesians navigate?

Polynesian navigation was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometres of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes.

When did Polynesians start exploring?

Between 1100 and 800 BCE these voyagers spread to Fiji and West Polynesia, including Tonga and Samoa. Around 1000 years ago people began to inhabit the central East Polynesian archipelagos, settling the closest first. The movement of peoples around the Pacific and from Asia into the Pacific over the last 6,000 years.

How early seafarers were able to navigate the Pacific ocean?

Early seafarers were able to navigate over the Pacific Ocean using the stars, yearly ocean currents, and climate.

What did the Polynesians make their sails from?

Sails were of pandanus matting except in New Zealand, where pandanus could not be naturalized and flax was substituted. Sails were cut from long rolls of matting seldom more than 18″ wide, double plaited of strips 3/16″ to 3/8″ wide in a twill pattern, changing to a check pattern along the edges for strength.

What was the Polynesian exploration?

Polynesian canoe

Polynesian explorers made long journeys of up to 3,000 miles (4,800km) to find new homes. They carried their animals, plants to sow, and their whole families with them. Canoes could be up to 100ft (30m) long.

What is the great expansion into the Pacific?

The westward expansion of the United States during the 19th century was not limited to North America, but rather included an ongoing push to establish a stronger U.S. presence in and across the Pacific Ocean. This maritime expansion, driven mostly by commerce, had important implications for U.S. foreign policy.

Why did the Polynesians migrate to Hawaii?

To keep track of each other in the darkness of night, they blew on conch shells. Many historians believe that the Polynesians who settled Hawaii came from the Marquesas Islands, which had forbidding terrain and poor conditions for farming. To aid their venture’s success, they brought many types of supplies.

How did the Polynesians spread to New Zealand or Easter Island?

We argue here that changing wind field patterns associated with the MCA provided conditions in which voyaging to and from the most isolated East Polynesian islands, New Zealand, and Easter Island was readily possible by off-wind sailing.

What were Polynesian sails made of?

The sails were made of mats woven from pandanus leaves. These vessels were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, like the one between Hawai’i and Tahiti.

What is marine navigation?

Marine navigation is planning, managing and directing a vessel’s voyage. The practice of marine navigation involves: good seamanship. professional knowledge and judgement. the application of science and technology.

Why is port left?

The left side is called ‘port’ because ships with steerboards or star boards would dock at ports on the opposite side of the steerboard or star. As the right side was the steerboard side or star board side, the left side was the port side.

What controls the direction of a boat?

The steering oar or steering board is an oversized oar or board to control the direction of a ship or other watercraft prior to the invention of the rudder. It is normally attached to the starboard side in larger vessels, though in smaller ones it is rarely if ever, attached.

How did ships navigate in the 1700s?

The only navigation they had was a sextant, which uses the angle between the sun (or star) and the horizon (constantly bouncing up and down due to strong Antarctic waves) to calculate latitude.

What is the compass on a boat called?

A binnacle is a waist-high case or stand on the deck of a ship, generally mounted in front of the helmsman, in which navigational instruments are placed for easy and quick reference as well as to protect the delicate instruments.

Does a compass work at sea?

A MAGNETIC COMPASS

Gimbals (gymbals) are usually used to mount marine compasses. These keep the compass bowl horizontal, even in heavy rolling and pitching, at sea. Don’t forget that any magnetic compass will point to magnetic north and readings taken will require adjustment for declination (variation).

When did the Polynesians stop exploring?

Polynesian expansion in the Pacific

Polynesian expansion of the Pacific reached Samoa about 3,500 years ago, at which point archaeological evidence suggests a hiatus, with no further expansion south-east across the Pacific until around 1000 years ago.

How do Pacific Islanders get water?

Ground water is the main source of drinking water on many islands, and for quite a few islands, it is the only reliable source of water throughout the year.

How do Pacific islands get water?

Islands in the Pacific region rely heavily on groundwater. For many Pacific islands, groundwater is the only reliable source of fresh water throughout the year.

How do Pacific islands get fresh water?

Though all Pacific Islands have access to a whole ocean of salt water, large-scale desalination requires too much energy to be feasible. Therefore, precipitation is the source of all freshwater for the islands.

Why did Polynesians leave the Pacific islands?

After the Second World War, close links, job opportunities and population pressure on some islands led many Pacific people to migrate to New Zealand.

What made migration in the Pacific possible?

Causes of migration in the Pacific

The obvious obstacle to travel in the Pacific was the long stretches of open ocean between islands. Pacific Islanders used a combination of technology—such as catamarans and outrigger canoes—and knowledge of the environment and astronomy to navigate between islands.

Where do archeologists think that the Polynesians began their migrations from?

For years, it was generally accepted that Polynesians originated in modern-day Taiwan and began moving south and east about 4,000 years ago. This migration account is based on the research of linguists, the findings of archeologists and some genetic analysis.

How do Pacific Islanders navigate?

Before the invention of the compass, sextant and clocks, or more recently, the satellite-dependant Global Positioning System (GPS), Pacific Islanders navigated open-ocean voyages without instruments, using instead their observations of the stars, the sun, the ocean swells, and other signs of nature for clues to …

How did the Polynesians navigate using stars?

Traditional Polynesian navigators position themselves mainly by the stars, using what’s called a star compass. The ability to read the night sky is a great skill. A star compass is used to help memorise the rising and setting points of the brightest and most distinctive stars and planets to set direction.

What did the Polynesians use to navigate between the islands in the Pacific ocean quizlet?

How did the Polynesians navigate the Pacific? They used natural methods such as using the stars and ocean currents as well as wind.

How did Polynesians use birds to navigate?

Bird Observation

It is also known that Polynesians used shore sighting birds, bringing with them Frigate birds, who refuse to land on the water as their feathers would become waterlogged. When voyagers thought they were close to land they would release the bird. It would either fly towards land or return to the canoe.

Why did the Polynesians stop exploring?

They were able to construct impressive boats, and navigate the ocean using only stars and ocean currents to guide them. Yet they suddenly stopped sailing. Some of the theories put forth by researchers to explain the cause of The Long Pause include sustained El Nino winds and ocean disasters, such as tidal waves.

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