Polynesian navigation device - photo

[Altair]

Polynesian navigation device.




Previously:

Using an analog watch as a compass - photo
Map planimeter - photo
Early personal and in-car navigation - photos

[mbshop]

I have several from yap and ulithi .

[Toolmaker51]

It must have worked, but regulating or calibration?
Was going to jibe about doing knots, far too obvious.

[mbshop]

Those are maps of the stars and islands. They had differant ones depending on the direction they were going. The people there traveled far and wide. Would add a piece if a new island was found. A guy from satawal guided the hawaiian canoe from hawaii to tahiti using those and other means but no electronics.The islanders were master navigators and could hit small atolls within sight. How do you think they traveled back then ? I remember a huge canoe arrive in yap from ulithi if i remember correctly, using just these navigation pieces.
That was in the mid 50s ? Long ago one went from some island to guam and caused a stir as it was the first time most had seen this in actual life. As a kid i learned how to sail a smaller canoe but the ocean ones were huge. So yea, they are real and they worked rather well. This is my memory of them. Maybe look them up for better info. Yes, i lived on yap till i was 10. Went back often enough till 1971.

[hemmjo]

Amazing how much we knowledge/technology the human race has lost over the years. Good stuff, important to real survival. As new ways are developed, the old are soon forgotten, especially those that were only recorded in the minds or those using them and passed down directly to the next generation.

I is becoming apparent we have invented our way into a corner. I do hope and pray we can find our way forward.

"In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)" is a hit song from 1969 by the American pop-rock duo of Dennis Zager and Richard Evans.

[Toolmaker51]

Amazing how much we knowledge/technology the human race has lost over the years. Good stuff, important to real survival. As new ways are developed, the old are soon forgotten, especially those that were only recorded in the minds or those using them and passed down directly to the next generation.

I is becoming apparent we have invented our way into a corner. I do hope and pray we can find our way forward.

"In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)" is a hit song from 1969 by the American pop-rock duo of Dennis Zager and Richard Evans.

This certainly hits me center of mass. That perspective is addressed often, haunting me long as I can remember, and recently as yesterday. Usually it's related to trades, craftsmanship, cooking etc; those efforts that combine detail - intuition - knowledge of related pursuits. Then offshoring and idiotic dependence on a service economy. Then just as impactful, blind acceptance of the 'marketing' related to COVID-19 over logic, science, common health practices...
A long line of bank customers, 95% plus making special effort to stand directly on their floor sticker, maintaining 6 foot spacing. People masked; sitting lone on their front yard, in cars windows rolled up, walking without a soul around...

[Crusty]

My dad was in the central Pacific in WWII and he told me of an experiment that the Navy conducted with a native navigator. They put him on a PBY blindfolded and flew him all over the region, stopping at various places and asking him to point in the direction back to his home. They found that he was always within a few degrees even though they took him to places that he said that he had never been before. Those navigators had a way of analyzing the wave intersections and were able to deduce where they were from the wave interactions from adjacent land masses.