Response to the late Chad Baybayan's Assertions, from Grand Master Navigator Ali Haleyalur
/
CONTEXT:
In 2018, TFB published a poll that asked the question, “Are Polynesians Culturally Appropriating Micronesian Navigation?”. Within the comments section of that article, a user with the profile name, “Chad Baybayan”, left a comment in response to the question:
There are actually two traditions, one modern and one very old.
Nainoa re-engineered the modern non-instrument navigation tradition through academics and science because Mau was unavailable to tutor Nainoa. Nainoaʻs system is based in science, built upon coursework at UH, and personal experimentation.
Nainoaʻs system is precise, based upon data extracted from meteorology, astronomy, math, and oceanography, and designed around the question of how a person can navigate between two points without instruments.
Mauʻs system can best be described as Oceanic Wayfinding. It is more about feel and a complete sense of how the canoe, ocean, and sky is synthesized into the wayfinding process. Mau relies upon intuition that is developed by countless previous oceanic voyages.
Today, Nainoa also has a keen intuitive ability based upon his numerous voyages. Nainoa spent two years developing his non-instrument navigation system and tested it on the failed Hōkūleʻa 1978 voyage to Tahiti.Post 1978, when the Hōkūleʻa was being refurbished, Nainoa through the advice of his father invited Mau back to Hawaiʻi to add to his training.
As there are only a limited amount of techniques that can be developed for navigating with out instruments, once Mau arrived he confirmed that the system that Nainoa had developed was exactly the same as Mauʻs traditional system.
We now have a understanding of traditional oceanic wayfinding grounded to a scientific process and validated through academia.
I am a student of both wayfinding and non-instrument navigation. The way we navigate today is a hybrid of both schools. Today I describe the Wayfinding and Navigation that Mau and Nainoa practice as Oceanic Wayfinding.
Both grew up on different island worlds, but their collective oceanic experience connects their intuition, and I would say is attached to their oceanic DNA.
- profile: “Chad Baybayan”
We cannot confirm if the profile belongs to the late Hawaiian master navigator Chad Kalepa Baybayan. Regardless, the points made in the comment run parallel to points that Baybayan made in his TEDx Talk and do not conflict with points he made in 2016, during a hearing for the TMT on Mauna Kea.
RESPONSE:
The following is Grand master navigator Ali Haleyalur’s response to the comment and the video.
(June 2, 2022)
The late Hokule'a Captain Chad Baybayan often shared his point of view about Carolinian traditional wayfinding, comparing it to a modern version of traditional wayfinding that is based on science and mathematics. I would like to respond to his assertions about traditional versus modern wayfinding.
To me, what I call Traditional Wayfinding is ours and ours alone -- that is, we Micronesians. It does not involve any type of modern instruments – no tracking devices; phones that can access the internet to course check; laptops; GPS; maps; a compass; or any other modern technology that is used by Captain Baybayan and his colleagues on their voyages as back-up.
The Micronesian skill and knowledge is based solely on the ways of our ancient ancestors that have been passed down for generations and continue to be passed on to our children today. We do not use modern instruments of any kind.
Wayfinding for us Micronesians is based only on using the stars, the waves, the currents and wind direction; the rising and setting of the sun and moon; the movement of water in the canoe’s hull; the diving and submerging of the outrigger; the rising of the clouds at sunrise and the setting of the clouds at sunset. It involves weather prediction and, in the open ocean, marks the fish, birds and insects, including which direction the birds are flying early in the morning and again at sunset. We must learn, over many years of study, how far out each type of bird can be from the islands.
In addition, we assess our shadows when standing in the middle of the canoe, or the shadow of our mast’s standing. We study both the navigational stars and the “fighting” stars to determine the weather conditions and our course.
But most importantly, Traditional Wayfinding of Micronesia requires referencing the islands and the calculation of our Etak, described as “a distinctive cognitive and mnemonic approach to oceanic navigation and orientation involving a notional reference point or ‘island’ and triangulation based on it.”
The modern traditional navigation that was re-engineered in Hawaii is not Traditional Micronesian Navigation. It is totally different from our ancient system of navigation developed centuries ago and passed down by our ancestors. Unlike our navigation system, the Polynesian method of navigation became extinct hundreds of years ago.
It would be very honest and much more appropriate if the Hawaiians were to admit that they are voyaging using their own system of re-engineered modern navigation based on some of the principles of the Micronesian tradition, rather than asserting that they are voyaging using the sacrosanct method of Traditional Wayfinding that was given to them by Mau. He only scratched the surface during the brief time he spent with the Hawaiians nearly 50 years ago. He did not share, and could not share, our universe of knowledge and skill in the brief time allowed. Nor would he have taught it in any but a rudimentary form due to our unassailable belief and vow that we are never to share the complex, ancient navigation methods of our ancestors as a whole that we continue to hold sacred and practice today.