Celebrating the
true discoverers
Today, most of the nation observes Columbus Day or Discoverers’ Day.
Explorers such as Christopher Columbus or Ferdinand Magellan are celebrated. Here in Hawaii, however, it takes on a very different aspect. I believe the late renowned artist and historian Herb Kane put it best when he stated:
“So it was that while other men sailed within the comforting presence of continental coasts, always knowing the way to a large land mass, Polynesians faced the open sea without fear as their own and only world. Before European open ocean exploration began, they and their descendants had discovered every habitable island within an area of ocean greater than the size of North and South America combined — a Neolithic feat which must rank forever as one of man’s greatest achievements.”
Written history is full of famous “discoverers” who ventured off to find far lands that already had people living in them. Who then were the true discoverers of Hawaii?
Sometime in the distant past, perhaps between 300 AD and 600 AD, one or more Polynesian double-hulled canoes ventured north from what are now the Marquesas Islands and became the first humans to discover the verdant volcanic islands of Hawaii.
It is likely they first settled in the fertile well-watered valleys of the windward sides where cultivation would have been easiest. In the forests, they would have encountered birds and plants unknown to them in their home islands, having evolved here in isolation for millions of years. Although we know little about them, it was these people, not the Europeans nor the later Polynesians, who were the true discoverers of Hawaii.
We know that these Polynesian discoverers brought with them cultigens, implements, a language and gods that had been part of their culture for thousands of years throughout their migration eastward out of Southeast Asia into Samoa, Tonga, and finally into the eastern Pacific.
Long before Columbus, they had discovered and settled virtually every inhabitable island within the Polynesian triangle that extends from Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the west to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the east to Hawaii in the north. They knew how to navigate these long voyages by reading the stars, wave patterns and signs of nature.
In recent years, a revival of these ancient navigation techniques has taken place through the voyages of the Hokule‘a and other Polynesian voyaging canoes, resulting in a greater respect for the abilities of these people.
Gordon Joyce
Captain Cook