by Lee Foster
“Who were the original Hawaiians?” and “How did they get to Hawaii?” are beguiling questions a traveler can raise.
Answers can be gleaned in Honolulu by visiting the Hawaiian Maritime Center and seeing the re-created deep-sea voyaging canoe, the Hokulea, or its sister ship, the Hawaii Loa, if they are not out voyaging. A traveler will be fortunate who stops in at the Polynesian Voyaging Society office in the Maritime Center and inquires if the visionary president of the society, Nainoa Thompson, the great open-ocean navigator, happens to be giving a public talk. He is an inspiring person to hear. (Besides seeing the ships and listening to Nainoa, take a look at the ethnography exhibits at the Bishop Museum, the major cultural museum in Honolulu.)
The phenomenon that humans ever reached Hawaii ranks with the major accomplishments of mankind.
Hawaii is one of the most remote places on Earth. The islands are fully 2,000 miles from the nearest inhabited places in the South Pacific. It takes five hours by jet to get there today from the South Pacific or from the U.S. mainland. Imagine what time it took for a sailing craft from the South Pacific, headed north to an unknown destination.
EARLIEST SAILINGS
The original inhabitants of Hawaii are believed to have come from the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific about A.D. 250-450. Later migrations probably came from Tahiti. It is believed that the Tahitians had the skills to make the journey in both directions.
The skills of navigation and the personal self-confidence that allowed these people to sail in relatively small deep-sea voyaging canoes over this huge distance are inspiring.
One wonders how many ill-fated canoes missed the Hawaiian Islands and disappeared anonymously in the abyss of history and the ocean.
On a relatively small double-hull canoe these explorers would have needed to carry their water, food, seeds to plant for more food, tools, livestock and familiar animals (such as pigs, chickens, and dogs), and sufficient child-bearers to reproduce themselves.
