Hokule'a Voyage

[MarkP]

One thing is that as the human population of an island increases the bird population decreases. When that happens there may be fewer cues to guide you the last few miles to an island just over the horizon. I don't know how significant that is and after all the Hokulea does seem to be able to find its way home now. I have heard of people using jet trails for reference.

[opihikao]

FYI: (Update) Hokule'a arrives in New York!

http://www.hokulea.com/new-york/

Local news video/article: (*Snipped - More at link)

http://khon2.com/2016/06/04/hokulea-arri...-ceremony/

Hawaii’s voyaging canoe Hokulea left Jamaica Bay, New York, on Saturday, which is about 17 miles south of New York City, where a grand welcoming ceremony is to be held on Sunday.

The crew will be moving the canoe closer to where the final destination will be for the Big Apple event in honor of World Oceans Day.

SO proud, and thankful. Remember when they left Hawai'i on this journey (5/18/2014)? (Link below is the departure from Oahu...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQVDtXEwDFo

As the song asks, "...how would they feel...". I must believe all would be so proud. Mahalo ke Akua, e na Aumakua, e na Kupuna.

Several local dignitaries, including our Mayor Kenoi, were present in New York, for the festivities. We have hundreds of "keiki o ka aina" in the east coast, and many, many, were on hand to greet Hokule'a.

(Hoping to see more videos, and if anyone has access to "raw footage", please post it here. Mahalo.)

JMO.

ETA: There are some "live/raw" footage at the link below (mahalo tol my keiki/mo'opuna; don't do FB, but get the videos! lol...), courtesy of Gil Kahele's son, Kaiali'i Kahale, who is also present in NY:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011254209175&fref=nf

[pahoated]

The Polynesian civilization used star charts and non-Euclidean astronomy as their primary navigation tools. It was exclusive to the ali'i and the kahuna, i.e. small group of expert elite.

The original groups of Tahitians that became the Hawaiians around 1000 AD conducted a return voyage to Tahiti around 1300 AD, then returned to Hawaii bringing more diverse canoe crops, more settlers, Ku and the kapu (tapu), back to the Hawaiian islands. These are who call themselves "kanaka maoli", true people.

The Hawaiians were perfectly capable of extended long voyages by the time Cook showed up, they just no longer had any need, the ali'i and kahuna knew they were at the center of the planet. Cook wrote extensively about the catamaran ocean going canoes over 60 feet long, how amazing they were to him. For one, they were twice as fast as his frigates.

The knowledge of the Hawaiian navigation systems started being lost in 1824 after High Chiefess Kapiolani converted to christianity and convinced King Kamehmeha III to outlaw the kapu. The kanaka maoli tore down anything associated with the kahuna including navigation heiau. More knowledge was lost due to the measles epidemic in 1848, killing 10,000 Native Hawaiians, with some ali'i and many kahuna. In 1893, all Hawaiian language and culture was banned from the school system, after school became mandatory, until 1978. This was the nail in the coffin, and even have the "kanaka maoli" speaking a Hawaiian language that wasn't spoken before contact.

Go to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu for a few hours, and realize you can spend a lifetime in there, many people do. Also, read about John Harrison, the "founder" of longitude. Europeans knew about longitude but in the early 1700's, were finding themselves thousands of miles from their destination on the east coast of the US. The Polynesians never invented latitude and longitude and could still span thousands of miles of ocean with total accuracy.

http://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/lo...n-harrison

"Aloha also means goodbye. Aloha!"

[opihikao]

Mahalo, Pahoated, for your mana'o. Intriguing, as always.

FYI: (*Update - Snipped/More at link; incl. video)

Hokule'a Crew to be Honored at the United Nations - World Oceans Day


http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/32169...28194696=1


Hokulea has been sailing around the world spreading a message of how important it is to "Malama Honua" -- or care for our island earth -- and there's no bigger platform for that initiative than in New York for the United Nations celebration of World Oceans Day.

Hokulea and her crew will be honored as one of the distinguished guests during a ceremony at the United Nations on Wednesday.

"The fact that United Nations asked us to be the centerpiece for World Oceans Day this year is a great honor for all of us. I mean, not just for the crew and the canoe but for everybody back home," said Billy Richards, a Hokulea captain and one of the original crew members aboard the canoe on its maiden voyage 40 years ago to Tahiti.

[pahoated]

I had an indirect connection to Herb Kane, how I found out about him years ago. He was born on the mainland but his father was a Chinese local from Hawaii and Herb spent a lot of his childhood on Hawaii island. He is the man behind the Hokule'a.

quote:

---

Kane played a key role in demonstrating that Hawaiian culture arose not from some accidental seeding of Polynesia, but that Hawaii was reachable by voyaging canoes from Tahiti able to make the journey and return. This offered a far more complex notion of the cultures of the Pacific Islands than had previously been accepted.

---

Peter Apo wrote a nice article about him in Civil Beat:
http://www.civilbeat.org/2016/06/peter-a...an-nation/

https://www.civilbeat.org/wp-content/upl...88x891.jpg

Herb completed about 400 paintings about Hawaiian life before contact, doing extensive research on every aspect of the culture, recovering whatever he could that had been lost. Many of his paintings are over in the Kamehameha hotel lobby, they really capture the grandeur of the Hawaiian society before western contact.

Here is another interesting language clue. The west knows "taro" as taro because it was first encountered in Tahiti coming from the west, where the word is "taro". In Hawaiian, it is "kalo". Now, if you realize the missionary that converted Hawaiian sounds into English letters and syllables, mistaking the "t" sound for "k", and the "r" sound with "l", then "taro" becomes "kalo". There are many other words that point to their Tahitian origin by taking the Hawaiian "k" and replacing it with a "t", the "l" replaced with "r".

The outlawing of Hawaiian culture in 1893 was a bigger crime against the Hawaiian people than the overthrow. For it to take until 1978 to finally overturn making the Hawaiian culture illegal, only shows the power plantations had over the entire political and business processes on these islands. Most of the cultural recovery that is going on is due to locals, rather than Native Hawaiians, mainly because some locals became educated in western archaeology, to dig up the past. Also, Cook recorded many things in his logs and journals, along with members of his crew, to document what they found when they came across it, not after a hundred years of western cultural contamination.


"Aloha also means goodbye. Aloha!"

[snorkle]

Forget all that Hawaiian stuff.....Herb Kane designed the "Jolly Green Giant"!!

[opihikao]

Hokule'a is coming home!

This is when they left:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQVDtXEwDFo

Now, they return...after the long journey (*Track the path home...link below)

http://www.hokulea.com/

Mahalo ke Akua.

[Eric1600]

I was down at Radio Bay and met the crew of Hikianalia who was taking repair materials to Hokule'a in Tahiti for their final leg. Apparently they had broken a boom and had to fix it. It took Hikianalia only 16 or so days to get there, which is a fast pace. There were a few Big Island locals onboard too like Kalepa, Kalani, Tava, and Kalau. Kala Tanaka was working towards becoming a navigator under Kelapa, and she was going to be leading the navigation for that leg. While the story of Hokule'a is a crowd pleaser, it has done a lot more to boost sailing in general for Hawaii due to the many people who've helped Hokule'a along the way.

http://www.hokulea.com/voyage/2017-hikia...to-tahiti/

I was excited for them and wished I could have gone on the sail with them. Since Hokule'a voyage officially started in Hilo, many people are secretly hoping they choose to return here first rather than Honolulu. But over time pressure has mounted to end the voyage on Oahu. http://www.hokulea.com/voyage/2017-hawaii-homecoming/

After returning to Hawaii in the fall of 2017, Hokule‘a and Hikianalia will sail around the Hawaiian Islands to reconnect with local communities and schools to share stories and lessons learned on the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage.

Nainoa Thompson woke up at 3am before heading to Tahiti and realized he needed to see other parts of Hawaii first. And he held the launch from Hilo as his most important stop. For me, this is when they really left:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmXdyh5vvvo

And a 5 part story about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUScj66biII

[Carey]

Voyaging canoe update:
The voyaging canoe Hikianalia is traveling up the west coast today (Wed June 7), at 12:30 was between Milolii & Honaunau
http://www.hokulea.com/track-the-voyage/
For East siders, the Tahitian canoe Fa`afaite has been in Hilo (Yesterday the crew was at Volcano NP)
https://www.facebook.com/faafaite/

ETA: Fa`afaite was still in Hilo this afternoon...so those that want to see it, still may have a chance