28.3.2016 / Maui, Hawaii

POLYNESIAN ASTRONOMY II
Since the 1970s, there has been a rebirth of interest in Polynesian navigation and the astronomy that supports it – the movement set out to learn that particular ancient art and to studying the appearance of the skies over Polynesia. Moreover, they reconstructed the traditional Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe, the Hokule`a, and its ultimate non-instrumental navigation retracing the voyages of the ancients; due to the arrival of Cook in 1778 and subsequent arrivals of foreign ships, the Hawaiians were introduced to spyglasses, sextants, compasses, clocks, and charts, and adapted to that technology. The foreign ideas and techniques soon crowded out the ancient and extensive knowledge of the sky and most of this ancient lore has been lost and forgotten.