06-18-2017, 06:38 AM
Today the New York Times reported on the May 23 passing of anthropologist Ben Finney, who, with artist Herb Kane and local waterman Tommy Holmes, helped to demonstrated that ancient Polynesians found the Hawaiian Islands through non-instrument navigation.
Finney cofounded the Polynesian Voyaging Society in 1973 and was instrumental in the building of the Hokulea, a traditional Hawaiian sailing canoe that voyaged more than 2,000 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti. Finney challenged the notion that Hawaii was found by accidental drifting.
A passage from the NY Times article:
“In 1974, Finney and several colleagues set about recreating a facsimile of the double-hulled canoes used in ancient Polynesia, assembling a mostly Hawaiian crew...
If the navigation went according to plan, the voyage did not. The canoe confronted fierce storms and becalmed seas. Even worse, cultural tensions arose.
Soon after setting sail, several of the Hawaiian crew members staged a mutiny, resentful that the Hokulea was not sailing around the Hawaiian Islands in a show of ethnic pride. They called Kawika Kapahulehua, the Hawaiian captain, a coconut — brown on the outside, white on the inside. When the canoe reached Tahiti, they threw punches at him and threatened to burn the boat.
Mr. Piailug, the navigator, threw up his hands in disgust and returned home. Guided by modern instruments, the Hokulea returned to Honolulu, without Mr. Finney and with a new crew. Despite the uprising, the voyage, described by Mr. Finney in “Hokulea: The Way to Tahiti” (1979), was a triumph. “The voyage changed the whole identity of the Hawaiian people,” Nainoa Thompson, the president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, told The Honolulu Star-Advertiser recently......”
Yesterday thousands of people crowded onto Magic Island in Honolulu to welcome Hokulea home from another journey, a three-year voyage around the globe. The event has received massive news coverage locally.
Interesting that the NY Times reporter elected to include this account in what is not a lengthy article.
Link is problematic, google:
Ben Finney, Anthropologist Who Debunked Theory on Island Settlement, Dies at 83
Finney cofounded the Polynesian Voyaging Society in 1973 and was instrumental in the building of the Hokulea, a traditional Hawaiian sailing canoe that voyaged more than 2,000 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti. Finney challenged the notion that Hawaii was found by accidental drifting.
A passage from the NY Times article:
“In 1974, Finney and several colleagues set about recreating a facsimile of the double-hulled canoes used in ancient Polynesia, assembling a mostly Hawaiian crew...
If the navigation went according to plan, the voyage did not. The canoe confronted fierce storms and becalmed seas. Even worse, cultural tensions arose.
Soon after setting sail, several of the Hawaiian crew members staged a mutiny, resentful that the Hokulea was not sailing around the Hawaiian Islands in a show of ethnic pride. They called Kawika Kapahulehua, the Hawaiian captain, a coconut — brown on the outside, white on the inside. When the canoe reached Tahiti, they threw punches at him and threatened to burn the boat.
Mr. Piailug, the navigator, threw up his hands in disgust and returned home. Guided by modern instruments, the Hokulea returned to Honolulu, without Mr. Finney and with a new crew. Despite the uprising, the voyage, described by Mr. Finney in “Hokulea: The Way to Tahiti” (1979), was a triumph. “The voyage changed the whole identity of the Hawaiian people,” Nainoa Thompson, the president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, told The Honolulu Star-Advertiser recently......”
Yesterday thousands of people crowded onto Magic Island in Honolulu to welcome Hokulea home from another journey, a three-year voyage around the globe. The event has received massive news coverage locally.
Interesting that the NY Times reporter elected to include this account in what is not a lengthy article.
Link is problematic, google:
Ben Finney, Anthropologist Who Debunked Theory on Island Settlement, Dies at 83