POLYNESIAN OCEAN MIGRATIONS AND EXPLORATIONS
Introduction - The Polynesian Triangle
Some 30,000 years ago, when the world was still in an Ice Age, the sea levels around the globe
were much lower than we now see today. At that time a dark-skinned land people from the
Southeast Asian islands of the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan began exploring and settling
other islands in the Pacific. They migrated to Australia and to near-by off-coast islands. At the
end of the Ice Age, as snow in the polar areas melted, the sea level rose as much as 270 feet. This
caused land bridges used in migrations to become submerged due to this gradual ice melt that was
caused by a natural global warming.
The Polynesian triangle.
After the Ice Age ended 10,000 years ago, the Pacific embraced sixty eight million square miles one third of the earth's entire surface. Travel to the islands required a mastery of boat building,
sea faring and navigation across considerable, dangerous waters. To survive these journeys,
bravery and ingenuity was employed and eventually larger and larger sea-worthy crafts were
designed and built. We can compare the heroism of these voyages to our first efforts to boldly
leave earth’s atmosphere for space travel.
Scientists believe that the first canoes left Asia and arrived in New Guinea 4500 years ago. These
mariners headed south and then east over many, many generations. By 1500 BC (3500 years ago),
they arrived in Fiji and with in 300 years reached Tonga and Samoa in western Polynesia.
Archaeologists have been uncovering pottery, stone axe (adze) and the remains of settlements to
better understand these sea-faring migrations. Their pottery is now called Lapita ware and these
Lapita people gradually spread eastward, further and further out into the Pacific.
Around two thousand years ago the settlers in Samoa, by then a culture with a complex religious
system and well experienced in canoe building and sea faring, then spread out again in all
directions. The group that headed east probably settled in the Marquesas about 300 AD.
Language and archaeology both suggest that this migration was the beginning of an era of broad
discoveries, stretching all the way to Easter Island in the east, New Zealand in the south, and
Hawaii in the North. By 600 AD, 1,400 years ago, the first Polynesian settlers crossed the equator
and sailed north to arrive in Hawaii, probably landing near South Point on the Big Island. A
second wave of migration arrived four hundred years later around 1000 AD. After that, the
European arrival in the 1700s (possibly an occasional contact in the 1500s) was the next contact
the isolated Hawaiians had with other peoples. Centuries before the Europeans dared to sail out
across the oceans, far away from the sight of land, these daring Polynesians had the skill,
knowledge, and motivation to explore and settle a triangle of open ocean that stretched from a
latitude as far north as Baja California and as far south as the tip of South America. Hawaii was
the settlement at the northern point of this Polynesian triangle; Easter Island was the south eastern
point of the triangle; New Zealand the southwestern point, and in between lie many island chains
and atolls populated or visited by these early sea faring Polynesians. While these points of the
Polynesian triangle mark by where settlements have been found from this early sea-going period,
it is quite possible they do not mark the boundaries of their explorations. Scientists are exploring
the possibility that these bold sailors also ventured on journeys further out, beyond the boundaries
of the settled triangle, and may have visited South America and the coast of North America.
Let's first learn more about the canoes the ancient Polynesians may have used to reach Hawaii
and other possible locations. Then we will explore potential evidence of possible broader intercultural, trans-Pacific exchanges. Scientists have only recently begun exploring the possibility of
Polynesian contact with Native Californians examining canoe building and linguistic similarities.
The idea of South American and Polynesian contact has been under consideration for a longer
time periods, with the appearance of the South American sweet potato in Polynesia one of the
most concrete examples of contact, and the sailing trip of Thor Heyerdahl on the Kon-Tiki in
1947 as another suggestion that such navigation was indeed possible. The most controversial
theory of early contact, one that has yet to be accepted by scientists but is still a topic of
exploration, is the possible existence of tablets from the purported lost content of Mu found in
Mayan temples in Mexico.
The Polynesian Voyaging Canoes - technology and navigation
Ancient Polynesian Voyaging
The most common voyaging canoe made by the early Polynesian explorers was a double hulled
craft with each hull formed in a wide V for stability. Their size was so great that there were no
trees large enough to be hollowed out for these massive hulls. Instead, the hulls were very
skillfully crafted of wooden planks, cut and fitted using stone adze, sewn together with coconut
sennit fibers twisted into rope and then caulked, probably with thick pliable breadfruit sap.
Hawaiian Canoe
While only a small group could fit in a hollowed log canoe (and then would have to remain sitting
as paddlers for the voyage), the large voyaging crafts could hold many families, dogs, pigs, plant
tubers and supplies needed to start new farms in uninhabited lands. These large canoes could not
only provide room for the sailors and large woven sails, but they would have had room for
shelters, bedding and provided a platform for moving about for exercise during long voyages.
With plaited hala sails the pair of hulls were lashed close together and had decks spanning the
two hulls to connect them for stability and to form the surface to accommodate passengers and
supplies. Where a single fisherman or small party could navigate a say fishing trip or short
voyage to a neighboring island in a single hulled outrigger made of a hollowed tree, the long,
much more uncertain open sea voyaging required the larger double hulled craft for safety and
supplies.
These large voyaging canoes, in use since at least 2,000 years ago, were the predecessors of the
canoes native Hawaiians were using when they first encountered European ships. In comparison,
the European ships were slower and harder ot maneuver. A reconstructed double hulled canoe,
the Hokulea, averages 100 miles a day on the open sea, sometimes 150 miles a day, outdistancing
the European style ships that would have been in use from 1500-1800 during the years that
Europeans first began exploring the Pacific.
Maritime historians now comment that in addition to being faster and more maneuverable, the
Polynesian craft is also better able to hold up in adverse, stormy weather conditions - the most
eminently dangerous adversary on the sea. It is also predicted that these double-hulled voyaging
craft could safely make journeys of 3,000 to 6,000 miles, giving them a very large potential
sphere of influence that might have included reaching and returning from the shores of North and
South America.
The Easter Island Connection – tip of the triangle and South America
Easter Island lies in isolation 2500 miles from South America to its east and 2000 miles from
Tahiti to the west. Part of the year the prevailing currents flow from the east, South America, to
the west, Polynesia. The other part of the year the currents shift and flow from Polynesia towards
South America.
Moai of Easter Island.
The majority of scientists are certain that Easter Island was settled by Polynesians from the west
around 400-600 AD as part of the Great Migrations of Polynesia, but others are exploring the
possibility the first Easter Islanders were early sea farers may have been explorers arriving from
the east, following the currents from South America. Others suggest that the peoples who came
from the east, from South America, were originally from Asia, related directly to the peoples who
were settling the western side of the Pacific in Polynesia, but arriving by a different, much longer
route.
Researchers from the Easter Island Foundation now believe that the orginal inhabitants arrived on
this remote island via double canoe and likely arrived by way of Mangareva, probably via
Pitcairn, then Easter Island. The Polynesians who settled Mangareva seemingly got there from the
Marquesas. Because the Easter Islanders cut down all of their trees, canoe building and sailing
died out.There are several images in the Easter Island rock art that scientists believe are pictures
of these early voyaging canoes.
While scientists hold very different opinions on this issue of who the first people were to inhabit
Easter Island and build the famous statues, debate among researchers is an important part of the
discovery process. Their debate asks two questions : Was the southeastern point, of what
scientists have recently identified as the Polynesian Triangle, settled by Polynesians from the
west ? Or was it settled by people of Asian descent from the east, from the South American
continent ?
Our main concern here in the Voyaging section is to examine whether or not voyages from
Polynesia, including from Easter Island, did in fact have a the means to visit South America –
beyond the Polynesian Triangle - and, likewise, did the South American’s have the means to visit
Polynesia, including Easter Island as the closest land fall.
Is it possible – regardless of who arrived first – that both peoples from Polynesian and South
America had the ship building and navigation abilities to visit one another and that exchanges of
plants and artifacts occurred?
Hawai'i to Tahiti and Return: 1976
The first voyage of the Hokule`a from Hawai`i to Tahiti and back took place in 1976, as part of
the Bicentenniel Celebration of American Independence. The official purpose of the voyage was
to show that the two-way voyages celebrated in Hawaiian oral traditions could be done in a
replica of an ancient voyaging canoe navigated without instruments.
Hokule'a Arrives in Tahiti, 1976.