Polynesia - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

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Polynesia is the largest of three major cultural areas

in the Pacific Ocean. Polynesia is generally defined

as the islands within the Polynesian triangle.

Geographic definition of Polynesia

PolynesiaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Polynesia(from Greek: "poly" many+ Greek:

"nsos" island) is a subregion of Oceania, made

up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and

southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who

inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians

and they share many similar traits including language,

culture and beliefs.[1]Historically, they were

experienced sailors and used stars to navigate during the

night.

The term "Polynesia" was first used in 1756 by French

writer Charles de Brosses, and originally applied to all

the islands of the Pacific. In 1831, Jules Dumont

d'Urville proposed a restriction on its use during a

lecture to the Geographical Society of Paris.

Contents

1 Geography

1.1 Geology

1.2 Geographic area

1.3 Island groups

1.3.1 Main Polynesia1.3.2 Polynesian outliers

1.3.2.1 In Melanesia

1.3.2.2 In Micronesia

1.3.2.3 Subantarctic Islands

2 History of the Polynesian people

2.1 Mainstream theories

2.2 Political history of Polynesia

2.2.1 Tonga 1500spresent

2.2.2 Samoa Malietoapresent

2.2.3 Tahiti2.2.4 Hawaii

2.2.5 New Zealand Maori

2.2.6 Fiji

2.2.7 Cook Islands

2.2.8 Tuvalu

2.3 Polynesian links to the Americas

3 Cultures of Polynesia

4 Polynesian languages

5 Economy

6 Political union7 Polynesian navigation

8 See also

9 References

ynesia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia

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10 Further reading

11 External links

Geography

Geology

Polynesia is characterized by a small amount of land spread over a very large portion of the mid and

southern Pacific Ocean. Most Polynesian islands and archipelagos, including the Hawaiian islands and

Samoa, are composed of volcanic islands built by hotspots. New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Ouva, the

Polynesian outlier near New Caledonia, are the unsubmerged portions of the largely sunken continent of

Zealandia. Zealandia is believed to have mostly sunk by 23 mya and resurfaced geologically recently due to

a change in the movements of the Pacific Plate in relation to the Indo-Australian plate, which served to uplift

the New Zealand portion. At first, the Pacific plate was subducted under the Australian plate. The Alpine

Fault that traverses the South Island is currently a transform fault while the convergent plate boundary from

the North Island northwards is a subduction zone called the Kermadec-Tonga Subduction Zone. Thevolcanism associated with this subduction zone is the origin of the Kermadec and Tongan island

archipelagos.

Out of about 117,000 or 118,000 square miles of land, over 103,000 square miles are within New Zealand;

the Hawaiian archipelago comprises about half the remainder. The Zealandia continent has approximately

1.4 million square miles of continental shelf. The oldest rocks in the region are found in New Zealand and

are believed to be about 510 million years old. The oldest Polynesian rocks outside of Zealandia are to be

found in the Hawaiian Emperor Seamount Chain, and are 80 million years old.

Geographic area

Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian Triangle, although there are some islands

that are inhabited by Polynesian people situated outside the Polynesian Triangle. Geographically, the

Polynesian Triangle is drawn by connecting the points of Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island. The other

main island groups located within the Polynesian Triangle are Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Tuvalu,

Tokelau, Niue, Wallis and Futuna and French Polynesia.

There are also small Polynesian settlements in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Caroline

Islands, and in Vanuatu. An island group with strong Polynesian cultural traits outside of this great triangle

is Rotuma, situated north of Fiji. The people of Rotuma have many common Polynesian traits but speak a

non-Polynesian language. Some of the Lau Islands to the southeast of Fiji have strong historic and culturallinks with Tonga.

However, in essence, Polynesia is a cultural term referring to one of the three parts of Oceania (the others

being Micronesia and Melanesia). DNA studies suggest that the indigenous Pacific Islands population

migrated from Taiwan thousands of years ago and dispersed throughout the region into three distinct cultural

groups.

Island groups

The following are the islands and island groups, either nations or overseas territories of former colonial

powers, that are of native Polynesian culture or where archaeological evidence indicates Polynesian

settlement in the past.[2]Some islands of Polynesian origin are outside the general triangle that

geographically defines the region.


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Mokolii Isle near Oahu, Hawaii

Cook's Bay on Moorea, French

Polynesia

Main Polynesia

American Samoa (territory of the United States)

Cook Islands (self-governing state in free association with

New Zealand)

Easter Island (calledRapa Nuiin the Rapa Nui language,

politically part of Chile)

French Polynesia (overseas country, a collectivity of France)Hawaii (a state of the United States)

New Zealand (independent nation)

Niue (self-governing state in free association with New

Zealand)

Norfolk Island (an Australian External Territory)

Pitcairn Islands (a British Overseas Territory)

Samoa (independent nation)

Tokelau (overseas dependency of New Zealand)

Tonga (independent nation)

Tuvalu (independent nation)Wallis and Futuna (collectivity of France)

Rotuma (Fijian dependency)

The Phoenix Islands and Line Islands, most of which are part of

Kiribati, are geographically Polynesian islands, but they had no permanent settlements until European

colonization.

Polynesian outliers

In Melanesia

Anuta (in the Solomon Islands)

Bellona Island (in the Solomon Islands)

Emae (in Vanuatu)

Fiji

Mele (in Vanuatu)

Nuguria (in Papua New Guinea)

Nukumanu (in Papua New Guinea)

Ontong Java (in the Solomon Islands)

Pileni (in the Solomon Islands)Rennell (in the Solomon Islands)

Sikaiana (in the Solomon Islands)

Takuu (in Papua New Guinea)

Tikopia (in the Solomon Islands)

There are United States Minor Outlying Islands in this area.

In Micronesia

Kapingamarangi (in the Federated States of Micronesia)

Nukuoro (in the Federated States of Micronesia)

Subantarctic Islands


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Austronesians expansion map (French)

Moai at Ahu Tongariki on Rapa Nui

Auckland Islands (the most southerly known evidence of Polynesian settlement)[3][4][5][6]

History of the Polynesian people

Mainstream theories

The Polynesian people are considered to be by linguistic,archaeological and human genetic ancestry a subset of

the sea-migrating Austronesian people and tracing

Polynesian languages places their prehistoric origins in

the Malay Archipelago, and ultimately, in Taiwan.

Between about 3000 and 1000 BC speakers of

Austronesian languages began spreading from Taiwan

into Island Southeast Asia,[7][8][9]as tribes whose

natives were thought to have arrived through South

China about 8,000 years ago to the edges of western

Micronesia and on into Melanesia, although they are

different from the Han Chinese who now form the

majority of people in China and Taiwan. In fact Taiwan, previously

inhabited mostly by non-Han aborigines, was Sinicized via

large-scale migration accompanied with assimilation during the 17th

century.

There are three theories regarding the spread of humans across the

Pacific to Polynesia. These are outlined well by Kayser et al.

(2000)[10]and are as follows:

Express Train model: A recent (c. 30001000 BC) expansion

out of Taiwan, via the Philippines and eastern Indonesia and

from the northwest ("Bird's Head") of New Guinea, on to Island Melanesia by roughly 1400 BC,

reaching western Polynesian islands right about 900 BC. This theory is supported by the majority of

current human genetic data, linguistic data, and archaeological data.

Entangled Bank model: Emphasizes the long history of Austronesian speakers' cultural and genetic

interactions with indigenous Island Southeast Asians and Melanesians along the way to becoming the

first Polynesians.

Slow Boat model: Similar to the express-train model but with a longer hiatus in Melanesia along with

admixture, both genetically, culturally and linguistically with the local population. This is supportedby the Y-chromosome data of Kayser et al.(2000), which shows that all three haplotypes of

Polynesian Y chromosomes can be traced back to Melanesia.[11]

In the archaeological record there are well-defined traces of this expansion which allow the path it took to be

followed and dated with some certainty. It is thought that by roughly 1400 BC,[12]"Lapita Peoples",

so-named after their pottery tradition, appeared in the Bismarck Archipelago of northwest Melanesia. This

culture is seen as having adapted and evolved through time and space since its emergence "Out of Taiwan".

They had given up rice production, for instance, after encountering and adapting to breadfruit in the Bird's

Head area of New Guinea. In the end, the most eastern site for Lapita archaeological remains recovered so

far has been through work on the archaeology in Samoa. The site is at Mulifanua on Upolu. The Mulifanuasite, where 4,288 pottery shards have been found and studied, has a "true" age of c. 1000 BC based on C14

dating.[13]A 2010 study places the beginning of the human archaeological sequences of Polynesia in Tonga

at 900 B.C.,[14]the small differences in dates with Samoa being due to differences in radiocarbon dating


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Grinding stones discovered from

archaeology in Samoa

technologies between 1989 and 2010, the Tongan site apparently predating the Samoan site by some few

decades in real time.

Within a mere three or four centuries between about 1300 and 900 BC, the Lapita archaeological culture

spread 6,000 km further to the east from the Bismarck Archipelago, until it reached as far as Fiji, Tonga, and

Samoa which were first populated around 3,000 years ago as mentioned previously.[15]A cultural divide

began to develop between Fiji to the west, and the distinctive Polynesian language and culture emerging on

Tonga and Samoa to the east. Where there was once faint evidence of uniquely shared developments inFijian and Polynesian speech, most of this is now called "borrowing" and is thought to have occurred in

those and later years more than as a result of continuing unity of their earliest dialects on those far flung

lands. Contacts were mediated especially through the eastern Lau Islands of Fiji and this is where most

Fijian-Polynesian linguistic interaction occurred.[citation needed]

Tiny populations seem to have been involved at first.[14]

They were matrilineal and matrilocal peoples upon arrival to Fiji,

Tonga and Samoa and had been through at least some goodly portion

of their time in the Bismarck Archipelago. The modern Polynesians,

in their profound isolation from the world beyond, still show the

human genetic results of a culture, when their ancestors were still in

Melanesia, that allowed indigenous men, but not women, to "marry

in" useful evidence for matrilocality.[7][8][16][17]

Matrilocality and matrilineality went by-the-bye at some early time

but Polynesians and most other Austronesian speakers in the Pacific

Islands were/are still highly "matricentric" in their traditional

urisprudence.[16]The Lapita pottery for which the general

archaeological complex of the earliest "Oceanic" Austronesian

speakers in the Pacific Islands are named also went by-the-bye inWestern Polynesia and language, social life and material culture were very distinctly "Polynesian" by the

time Eastern Polynesia began to be settled after a "pause" of 1000 years or perhaps well more in Western

Polynesia.

The dating of the settlement of Eastern Polynesia including Hawai'i, Easter Island, and New Zealand is not

agreed upon in every instance. Most recently a 2010 study using meta-analysis of the most reliable

radiocarbon dates available suggested that the colonization of Eastern Polynesia (including Hawaii and New

Zealand) proceeded in two short episodes: in the Society Islands from 10251120 AD and further afield

from 11901290 AD,[18]with Easter Island being settled around 1200.[19][20]Other archeological models

developed in recent decades, which are challenged by that recent set of radiocarbon dating interpretations,have pointed to dates of between 300 and 500 AD, or alternatively 800 AD (as supported by Jared Diamond)

for the settlement of Easter Island, and similarly, a date of 500 AD has been suggested for Hawaii.

Linguistically, there is a very distinct "East Polynesian" subgroup with many shared innovations not seen in

other Polynesian languages. The Marquesas dialects are perhaps the source of the oldest Hawaiian speech

which is overlaid by Tahitian variety speech, as Hawaiian oral histories would suggest. The earliest varieties

of New Zealand Maori speech may have had multiple sources from around central Eastern Polynesia as

Maori oral histories would suggest.[citation needed]

Political history of Polynesia

Perhaps the oldest extensive political entity was that of the Samoa-based Tu'i Manu'a Confederacy, ruled by

the holders of the Tu'i Manu'a title, which may well be the oldest chieftain title in Polynesia. This

confederacy likely included much of Western Polynesia and some outliers at the height of its power in the

10th and 11th centuries; most notably: the Samoa, Tonga, Lau Islands and perhaps the main islands of Fiji.


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The Tongans revolted around 1000 years ago and formed their own Tu'i Tonga empire that came to dominate

Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji, with an influence stretching from Nauru in the Northwest, to Niue in the East. The

empire ruled for much of the Medieval period, until the Samoan revolt and subsequent rise of the Malietoa

dynasties in Samoa, and ended with their capitulation to the Tongan Tu'i Ha'atakalaua dynasty in the 15th

century.

Tonga 1500spresent

After a bloody civil war, political power in Tonga eventually fell under the Tu'i Kanokupolu dynasty in the

16th century.

In 1845 the ambitious young warrior, strategist, and orator Tufahau united Tonga into more Western-style

kingdom. He held the chiefly title of Tui Kanokupolu, but had been baptised with the name Jiaoji

("George") in 1831. In 1875, with the help of missionary Shirley Waldemar Baker, he declared Tonga a

constitutional monarchy, formally adopted the western royal style, emancipated the "serfs", enshrined a code

of law, land tenure, and freedom of the press, and limited the power of the chiefs.

Tonga became a British-protected state under a Treaty of Friendship on 18 May 1900, when European

settlers and rival Tongan chiefs tried to oust the second king. Within the British Empire, which posted no

higher permanent representative on Tonga than a British Consul (19011970), Tonga formed part of the

British Western Pacific Territories (under a colonial High Commissioner, residing on Fiji) from 1901 until

1952. Despite being under the protectorate, Tonga retained its monarchy without interruption.

On June 4, 1970 the Kingdom of Tonga received independence from the British protectorate.

Samoa Malietoapresent

Samoa remained under Malietoa chieftains until its East-West division by Tripartite Convention (1899)

subsequent annexation by the German Empire and the United States. The German-controlled Westernportion of Samoa (the consisting of the bulk of Samoan territory) was occupied by New Zealand in WWI,

and administered by it under a Class C League of Nations Mandate until receiving independence on January

1, 1962. The new Independent State of Samoa was not a monarchy, though the Malietoa title-holder

remained very influential. It officially ended, however with the death of Malietoa Tanumafili II on May 11,

2007.

Tahiti

See: Pomare Dynasty

Hawaii

See: Kingdom of Hawaii

New Zealand Maori

On October 28, 1835 members of the Ng Puhi and surrounding iwi issued a "declaration of independence",

as a "confederation of tribes" to resist potential French colonization efforts and to prevent the ships and

cargo of Maori merchants from being seized at foreign ports. They received recognition from the British

monarch in 1836. (See United Tribes of New Zealand, New Zealand Declaration of Independence, JamesBusby.)

Using the Treaty of Waitangi and right of discovery as a basis, the United Kingdom annexed New Zealand


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Outrigger canoes at Waikiki beach,

late 1800s

as a part of New South Wales in 1840.

In response to the actions of the colonial government, Maori looked

to form monarchy inclusive of all Maori tribes in order to reduce

vulnerability to the British divide-and-conquer strategy. Ptatau Te

Wherowhero high priest and chief of the Ngti Mahuta tribe of the

Waikato iwi was crowned as the Maori king in 1858. The king's

territory consisted primarily of the lands in the center of the North

Island, and the iwi constituted from the most powerful

non-signatories of the Treaty of Waitangi, with Te Wherowhero also

never having signed it.[21](See Kingitanga.)

All tribes were pressed into subjection to the colonial government by

the late 19th century. Although Maori were given the privilege of being legally enfranchised subjects of the

British Empire under the Treaty, Maori culture and language were actively suppressed by the colonial

government and by economic and social pressures from the Pakeha society until efforts were made to

preserve indigenous culture starting in the late 1950s and culminating in the Waitangi Tribunal's

interpretation of language and culture being included in the treasures set to be preserved under the Treaty of

Waitangi. Moving from a low point of 15,000 speakers in the 1970s, there are now over 157,000 people who

have some proficiency in the standard Mori language according to the 2006 census[22]in New Zealand, due

in large part to government recognition and promotion of the language.

Maori are very much integrated into New Zealand society, and many are of mixed Maori and European,

Asian, or Pacific Islander heritage. The New Zealand Defence forces are over half Maori, and the New

Zealand Special Forces are 2/3 Maori. Jerry Mateparae, the former chief of the armed forces, now serves as

Governor-General of New Zealand. However, despite major achievements towards equality, Maori are still

under-represented in many fields.

Fiji

(See: History of Fiji, Seru Epenisa Cakobau, Fiji during the time of Cakobau.)

The Lau islands had after the Tu'i Mana'u dynasty were subject to periods of Tongan and then Fijian control

until their eventual conquest by Seru Epenisa Cakobau of the Kingdom of Fiji by 1871. In around 1855 a

Tongan prince, Enele Ma'afu, proclaimed the Lau islands as his kingdom, and took the title Tui Lau.

Fiji itself had been ruled by numerous divided chieftains until Cakobau unified the landmass. The Lapita

culture, the ancestors of the Polynesians, existed in Fiji from 3500 BCE until they were displaced by the

Melanesians about a thousand years later. (Interestingly, Samoans and subsequent Polynesian cultures

adopted Melanesian face painting methods.)

In 1873, Cakobau ceded a Fiji heavily indebted to foreign creditors to the United Kingdom. It became

independent on 10 October 1970 and a republic on 28 September 1987.

Cook Islands

See: Kingdom of Rarotonga.

Tuvalu

See: History of Tuvalu.

The reef islands and atolls of Tuvalu are identified as being part of West Polynesia. The pattern of settlement


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Canoe carving on Nanumea

atoll, Tuvalu

that is believed to have occurred is that the Polynesians spread out from the

Samoan Islands into the Tuvaluan atolls, with Tuvalu providing a stepping

stone to migration into the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia and

Micronesia.[23][24][25]

The stories as to the ancestors of the Tuvaluans vary from island to island.

On Niutao,[26]Funafuti and Vaitupu the founding ancestor is described as

being from Samoa;[27][28]whereas on Nanumea the founding ancestor isdescribed as being from Tonga.[27]These stories can be linked to what is

known about the Samoa-based Tu'i Manu'a Confederacy, ruled by the

holders of the Tu'i Manu'a title, which confederacy likely included much of

Western Polynesia and some outliers at the height of its power in the 10th

and 11th centuries.

The extent of influence of the Tui Tonga line of Tongan kings, which

originated in the 10th century is understood to have extended to some of the

islands of Tuvalu in the mid-13th century.[28]However the existence of the

Tui Tonga Empire is disputed.

The history of Niutao recalls that in the 15th century Tongan warriors were defeated in a battle on the reef of

Niutao, Tongan warriors also invaded Niutao later in the 15th century and again were repelled. A third and

fourth Tongan invasion of Niutao occurred in the late 16th century, again with the Tongans being

defeated.[26]

Fishing was the primary source of protein, with the cuisine of Tuvalu reflecting the food that could be grown

on low-lying atolls. Navigation between the islands of Tuvalu was carried out using outrigger canoes. The

population levels of the low-lying islands of Tuvalu had to be managed because of the effects of periodic

droughts and the risk of severe famine if the gardens were poisoned by the salt from the storm-surge of a

tropical cyclone.

Polynesian links to the Americas

See also: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact#Possible Polynesian trans-oceanic contact

The sweet potato, called kmarain Mori, which is native to the Americas, was widespread in Polynesia

when Europeans first reached the Pacific. Remains of the plant have been radiocarbon-dated in the Cook

Islands to 1000 AD, and current thinking is that it was brought to central Polynesia circa 700 AD and spread

across Polynesia from there, possibly by Polynesians who had traveled to South America and back.[29]

Thor Heyerdahl proposed in the mid-20th century that the Polynesians had migrated from South America on

balsa-log boats.[30][31]Many anthropologists have criticised Heyerdahl's theory, including Wade Davis in his

book The Wayfinders. Davis says that Heyerdahl "ignored the overwhelming body of linguistic,

ethnographic, and ethnobotanical evidence, augmented today by genetic and archaeological data, indicating

that he was patently wrong."[32]

Cultures of Polynesia

Main article: Polynesian culture

Polynesia divides into two distinct cultural groups, East Polynesia and West Polynesia. The culture of West

Polynesia is conditioned to high populations. It has strong institutions of marriage and well-developed

udicial, monetary and trading traditions. It comprises the groups of Tonga, Niue, Samoa and extended to the


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Painting of Tahitian Women on the

Beachby Paul GauguinMuse

d'Orsay

Carving from the ridgepole

of a Mori house, ca 1840

atolls of Tuvalu to the north. The pattern of settlement that is

believed to have occurred is that the Polynesians spread out from the

Samoan Islands into the Tuvaluan atolls, with Tuvalu providing a

stepping stone to migration into the Polynesian Outlier communities

in Melanesia and Micronesia.[23][24][25]

Eastern Polynesian cultures are highly adapted to smaller islands and

atolls, principally the Cook Islands, Tahiti, the Tuamotus, theMarquesas, Hawaii, Rapa Nui and smaller central-pacific groups.

The large islands of New Zealand were first settled by Eastern

Polynesians who adapted their culture to a non-tropical environment.

Unlike in Melanesia, leaders were chosen in Polynesia based on their

hereditary bloodline. Samoa however, had another system of

government that combines elements of heredity and real-world skills to choose leaders. This system is called

Fa'amatai.[33]According to Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones, "On Tahiti, for example, the 35,000

Polynesians living there at the time of European discovery were divided between high-status persons with

full access to food and other resources, and low-status persons with limited access."[34]

Religion, farming, fishing, weather prediction, out-rigger canoe (similar to

modern catamarans) construction and navigation were highly developed

skills because the population of an entire island depended on them. Trading

of both luxuries and mundane items was important to all groups. Periodic

droughts and subsequent famines often led to war.[34]Many low-lying

islands could suffer severe famine if their gardens were poisoned by the salt

from the storm-surge of a tropical cyclone. In these cases fishing, the

primary source of protein, would not ease loss of food energy. Navigators, in

particular, were highly respected and each island maintained a house of

navigation with a canoe-building area.

Settlements by the Polynesians were of two categories: the hamlet and the

village. Size of the island inhabited determined whether or a not a hamlet

would be built. The larger volcanic islands usually had hamlets because of

the many zones that could be divided across the island. Food and resources

were more plentiful and so these settlements of four to five houses (usually

with gardens) were established so that there would be no overlap between

the zones. Villages, on the other hand, were built on the coasts of smaller

islands and consisted of thirty or more housesin the case of atolls, on only one of the group so that food

cultivation was on the others. Usually these villages were fortified with walls and palisades made of stoneand wood.[35]

However, New Zealand demonstrates the opposite: large volcanic islands with fortified villages.

As well as being great navigators these people were artists and artisans of great skill. Simple objects, such as

fish-hooks would be manufactured to exacting standards for different catches and decorated even when the

decoration was not part of the function. Stone and wooden weapons were considered to be more powerful

the better they were made and decorated. In some island groups weaving was a strong part of the culture and

gifting woven articles an ingrained practice. Dwellings were imbued with character by the skill of their

building. Body decoration and jewellery is of international standard to this day.

The religious attributes of Polynesians were common over the whole Pacific region. While there are some

differences in their spoken languages they largely have the same explanation for the creation of the earth and

sky, for the gods that rule aspects of life and for the religious practices of everyday life. People travelled


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Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Prime

Minister of Samoa, who initiated the

Polynesian Leaders Group in late

2011.

thousands of miles to celebrations that they all owned communally.

Due to relatively large numbers of competitive sects of Christian missionaries in the islands, many

Polynesian groups have been converted to Christianity.

Polynesian languages

Main article: Polynesian languages

Polynesian languages are all members of the family of Oceanic languages, a sub-branch of the Austronesian

language family. Polynesian languages show a considerable degree of similarity. The vowels are generally

the samea, e, i, o, and u, pronounced as in Italian, Spanish, and Germanand the consonants are always

followed by a vowel. The languages of various island groups show changes in consonants.Rand vare used

in central and eastern Polynesia whereas land vare used in western Polynesia. The glottal stop is

increasingly represented by an inverted comma or 'okina. In the Society Islands, the original Proto-

Polynesian *kand *nghave merged as glottal stop; so the name for the ancestral homeland, deriving from

Proto-Nuclear Polynesian *sawaiki,[36]becomes Havai'i. In New Zealand, where the original *wis used

instead of v, the ancient home is Hawaiki. In the Cook Islands, where the glottal stop replaces the original *s(with a likely intermediate stage of *h), it is Avaiki. In the Hawaiian islands, where the glottal stop replaces

the original k, the largest island of the group is named Hawaii. In Samoa, where the originalsis used

instead of h, vreplaces w, and the glottal stop replaces the original k, the largest island is called Savai'i.[1]

Economy

With the exception of New Zealand, the majority of independent Polynesian islands derive much of their

income from foreign aid and remittances from those who live in other countries. Some encourage their

young people to go where they can earn good money to remit to their stay-at-home relatives. Many

Polynesian locations, such as Easter Island, supplement this with tourism income. Some have more unusualsources of income, such as Tuvalu which marketed its '.tv' internet top-level domain name or the Cooks that

relied on stamp sales.

Political union

After several years of discussing a potential regional grouping, three

sovereign states (Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu) and five self-governing

but non-sovereign territories formally launched, in November 2011,

the Polynesian Leaders Group, intended to cooperate on a variety of

issues including culture and language, education, responses to

climate change, and trade and investment. It does not, however,

constitute a political or monetary union.[37][38][39]

Polynesian navigation

Main article: Polynesian navigation

Polynesia comprised islands diffused throughout a triangular area with sides of four thousand miles. The

area from the Hawaiian Islands in the north, to Easter Island in the east and to New Zealand in the southwere all settled by Polynesians.

Navigators traveled to small inhabited islands using only their own senses and knowledge passed by oral

tradition from navigator to apprentice. In order to locate directions at various times of day and year,


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Polynesian (Hawaiian) navigators

sailing multi-hulled canoe, ca 1781.

A common fishing canoe va'awith

outrigger in Savai'i island, Samoa,

2009.

navigators in Eastern Polynesia memorized important facts: the motion of specific stars, and where they

would rise on the horizon of the ocean; weather; times of travel; wildlife species (which congregate at

particular positions); directions of swells on the ocean, and how the crew would feel their motion; colors of

the sea and sky, especially how clouds would cluster at the locations of some islands; and angles for

approaching harbors.

These wayfinding techniques, along with outrigger canoe

construction methods, were kept as guild secrets. Generally each

island maintained a guild of navigators who had very high status; in

times of famine or difficulty these navigators could trade for aid or

evacuate people to neighboring islands. On his first voyage of Pacific

exploration Cook had the services of a Polynesian navigator, Tupaia,

who drew a hand-drawn Chart of the islands within 2,000 miles

(3,200 km) radius (to the north and west) of his home island of

Ra'iatea. Tupaia had knowledge of 130 islands and named 74 on his

Chart.[40]Tupaia had navigated from Ra'iatea in short voyages to 13

islands. He had not visited western Polynesia, as since his

grandfathers time the extent of voyaging by Raiateans has

diminished to the islands of eastern Polynesia. His grandfather and

father had passed to Tupaia the knowledge as to the location of the

major islands of western Polynesia and the navigation information

necessary to voyage to Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.[41]As the Admiralty

orders directed Cook to search for the Great Southern Continent,

Cook ignored Tupaias Chart and his skills as a navigator. To this

day, original traditional methods of Polynesian Navigation are still

taught in the Polynesian outlier of Taumako Island in the Solomon

Islands.

From a single chicken bone recovered from the archaeological site ofEl Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula, Chile, a 2007 research report

looking at radiocarbon dating and an ancient DNA sequence indicate

that Polynesian navigators may have reached the Americas at least 100 years before Columbus (who arrived

1492 AD), introducing chickens to South America.[42][43]A later report looking at the same specimens

concluded:

A published, apparently pre-Columbian, Chilean specimen and six pre-European Polynesian

specimens also cluster with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian

sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In

contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group with an uncommonhaplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may represent a genetic signature of an early

Polynesian dispersal. Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean

archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian chickens, and

definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and

stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.[44]

Knowledge of the traditional Polynesian methods of navigation were largely lost after contact with and

colonization by Europeans. This left the problem of accounting for the presence of the Polynesians in such

isolated and scattered parts of the Pacific. By the late 19th century to the early 20th century a more generous

view of Polynesian navigation had come into favor, perhaps creating a romantic picture of their canoes,

seamanship and navigational expertise.

In the mid to late 1960s, scholars began testing sailing and paddling experiments related to Polynesian

navigation: David Lewis sailed his catamaran from Tahiti to New Zealand using stellar navigation without


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instruments and Ben Finney built a 40-foot replica of a Hawaiian double canoe "Nalehia" and tested it in

Hawaii.[45]Meanwhile, Micronesian ethnographic research in the Caroline Islands revealed that traditional

stellar navigational methods were still in every day use. Recent re-creations of Polynesian voyaging have

used methods based largely on Micronesian methods and the teachings of a Micronesian navigator, Mau

Piailug.

It is probable that the Polynesian navigators employed a whole range of techniques including use of the

stars, the movement of ocean currents and wave patterns, the air and sea interference patterns caused byislands and atolls, the flight of birds, the winds and the weather. Scientists think that long-distance

Polynesian voyaging followed the seasonal paths of birds. There are some references in their oral traditions

to the flight of birds and some say that there were range marks onshore pointing to distant islands in line

with these flyways. One theory is that they would have taken a frigatebird with them. These birds refuse to

land on the water as their feathers will become waterlogged making it impossible to fly. When the voyagers

thought they were close to land they may have released the bird, which would either fly towards land or else

return to the canoe. It is likely that the Polynesians also used wave and swell formations to navigate. It is

thought that the Polynesian navigators may have measured the time it took to sail between islands in "canoe-

days or a similar type of expression.

Also, people of the Marshall Islands used special devices called stick charts, showing the places anddirections of swells and wave-breaks, with tiny seashells affixed to them to mark the positions of islands

along the way. Materials for these maps were readily available on beaches, and their making was simple;

however, their effective use needed years and years of study.[46]

See also

List of Polynesians

Polynesian mythology

Polynesian SocietyPolynesian Voyaging Society

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^Wilmshurst, J. M.; Hunt, T. L.; Lipo, C. P.; Anderson, A. J. (2010). "High-precision radiocarbon dating shows

recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia".Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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^Hunt, T. L.; Lipo, C. P. (2006). "Late Colonization of Easter Island". Science311(5767): 16031606.

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(http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/Volume_38_1929

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^Davis, Wade (2010) The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, Crawley: University

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^Druett, Joan (1987). Tupaia The Remarkable Story of Captain Cooks Polynesian Navigator. Random House,

New Zealand. pp. 218233. ISBN 0313387486.

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^Wilford, John Noble (June 5, 2007). "First Chickens in Americas Were Brought From Polynesia"

(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/science/05chic.html).New York Times.

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(2007). "Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile"

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^Gongora, Jaime; Rawlence, Nicolas J.; Mobegi, Victor A.; Jianlin, Han; Alcalde, Jose A.; Matus, Jose T.;

Hanotte, Olivier; Moran, Chris et al. (2008). "Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens

revealed by mtDNA" (//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2492461).PNAS105(30): 1030810313.

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^Lewis, David. "A Return Voyage Between Puluwat and Saipan Using Micronesian Navigational Techniques"

(http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/?wid=4479). In Ben R. Finney (1976),Pacific Navigation and

Voyaging, The Polynesian Society Inc.

45.

^Bryan, E.H. (1938). "Marshall Islands Stick Chart" (http://www.ethnomath.org/resources/bryan1938.pdf).

Paradise of the Pacific50(7): 1213.

46.

Further reading

Gatty, Harold (1999).Finding Your Ways Without Map or Compass. Dover Publications, Inc.

ISBN 0-486-40613-X.

External links

History of Easter Island illustrated by stamps (http://www.jeanhervedaude.com

/Ile%20de%20Paques%20histoire%20par%20les%20timbres.htm)

Interview with David Lewis (http://www.abc.net.au/gnt/history/Transcripts/s1066068.htm)

Lewis commenting on Spirits of the Voyage(http://www.tritonfilms.com/lewisreview.htm)

PhotogalleryFrench Polynesia (Tahiti, Moorea, Motu Tiahura) (http://www.tropic-island.net/gallery

/album.php?id_album=12)Useful introduction to Maori society, including canoe voyages (http://www.maori.info/)

Obituary: David Henry Lewisincluding how he came to rediscover Pacific Ocean navigation

methods (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/15/1037080913844.html)


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