Dr. Richard Feinberg, Dr. Ben R. Finney, and Dr. Marianne George will investigate the cognitive spatial system underlying indigenous navigation on Taumako, a Polynesian community in the Solomon Islands. Distinctively Polynesian navigation methods are poorly documented and understood, as canoe voyaging was long ago abandoned in most of Polynesia. However, such methods were used by the Taumako until the 1960s, when availability of outboard motors and inter-island shipping led them also to give up canoe sailing.
The investigators will study Taumako navigation both as an abstract knowledge system and as concrete practice. They will record the navigators' observations, reasoning, and actions at sea; and they will use sophisticated instruments to track the canoes and measure navigational performance. By comparing the two data sets, they will determine how, and how well, traditional methods work.Recently, scientists investigating systems of spatial orientation have analyzed reports on navigation in Micronesia's Caroline Islands, where voyaging never died out. However, whereas Carolinians rely on a conceptual "star compass," the Taumako employ a "wind compass" as their central navigational construct. The proposed research will test hypotheses derived from Carolinian navigation in relation to a parallel, though differently structured, Polynesian system.
During the 1990s, the paramount chief of Taumako initiated a voyaging revival in which the few remaining experts have been teaching youths to build, sail, and navigate voyaging canoes. Finney, and George will study Taumako canoes and voyaging techniques, their place in the island's socio-economic order, their importance for Taumako cultural identity, and the revival process itself. The findings will be published in scientific journals and will also made available to local island teachers and curriculum developers, who will incorporate them into lesson plans for various grade levels, thus benefiting the local hosts as well as contributing to scientific knowledge.
