Mau Piailug

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Mau Piailug : biography

01 January 1932 – 12 July 2010

Daily life in Mau’s village on Satawal involved harvesting taro and gathering breadfruit and coconut. The Satawalese people also raised chicken and pork and caught fish, their primary source of protein. A freshwater pond served as bathing facilities. Local materials were used to construct outrigger canoes called proa. The island’s isolation helped preserve the lifestyle of the Satawalese people and Mau’s role as a navigator. Even with the arrival of the Germans (1890) and the Japanese (1914) in Micronesia, Satawalese culture remained intact. American missionaries who arrived after World War IIMau’s brother Urupoa believes the missionaries arrived or were established on Satawal sometime around 1948. See . built the first church and school on Satawal.

In the late 1960s, Mau attempted to verify his navigational knowledge of the wider Pacific by working as a seaman on an inter-island ship run by the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. From 1969–1973, Mau became friends with Mike McCoy, a Peace Corps volunteer stationed on Satawal. As well as marrying Mau’s niece, McCoy sailed with Mau and they worked together on a project tagging turtles. McCoy became interested in Satawalese navigation, published several articles on the topic and kept in touch with the anthropologist Ben Finney, who was researching Polynesian navigation. When McCoy’s assignment on Satawal ended, he asked Pialug if he wanted to come to Hawaii with him.

Honolulu, Hawaii

Mau first visited Hawaii in 1973, and McCoy introduced him to Ben Finney. Later, Finney suggested to the Polynesian Voyaging Society that they should try to recruit Mau for their Hōkūle‘a project, since no Hawaiian traditional navigators remained. The project goal was to test the hypothesis that Polynesians made intentional non-instrument voyages across the Pacific. Tevake, a renowned Polynesian navigator, had died in 1970 and and only six others were known. Navigators were reluctant to release their sacred knowledge to "outsiders." At the time, Mau was just forty-one years old, and the youngest navigator out of the group. Mau feared that traditional navigation would die in his own culture, just as it had in Hawaii. He had tried to teach the young men of Satawal the skills passed on to him, but he was not optimistic. The members of the younger generation were too busy with school and too attracted to Western culture to undertake the rigorous course of study and apprenticeship. Further, Mau’s people did not seem to care that traditional navigation was dying, and could be lost forever.

Awards

Mau was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 1987 by the University of Hawaii., . On May 9, 2000, he was honored by the Smithsonian Institution at the National Museum of Natural History. At the ceremony, then-secretary Lawrence Small said, "The rebirth of non-instrument navigation came about largely due to this man, Mau Piailug." The Bishop Museum presented Mau with the Robert J. Pfeiffer Medal on July 12, 2008, honoring him for "exceptional dedication to the advancement of maritime affairs and the perpetuation of maritime heritage in Hawaii and the Pacific." Mau also was honored for his "devotion and outstanding civic leadership" and for exemplifying "the spirit and purpose of the Museum’s founder Charles Reed Bishop".

Wayfinding and navigation

Training

Navigator training was historically interwoven with culture and ritual. Great discretion had to be shown in candidate selection so that the knowledge preserved through oral tradition would have the greatest chance of survival. A master navigator’s rank was equal or superior to a village chief’s rank. Prudent navigation relies on no single technique, but instead synthesizes position from multiple inputs. Underway, this constant synthesis makes it easy to spot the navigator—he’s the one with red eyes from sleep deprivation. and

Mau Piailug’s Star Compass and
Tan Rising East
Wuliwulifasmughet North star Polaris
Mailapailefung Little Dipper Ursa Minor
Wylur Big Dipper Ursa Major
Igulig ("Whale") 1) Cassiopeia (head of whale)2a) Almach & 2b) Mirach (body of whale)3a) Hamal & 3b) Sharatan (whale’s tail) 1) Cassiopeia2a) Gamma Andromedae & 2b) Beta Andromedae3a) Alpha Arietis & 3b) Beta Arietis
Murn Vega Vega
Marigaht Seven Sisters Pleiades
Uul Aldebaran Alpha Tauri
Paiifung Tarazed Gamma Aquilae
Mailap Altair Alpha Aquilae
Paiyur Alshain Beta Aquilae
Earlier Orion Orion
Sarapool Corvus Corvus
Tumur Scorpius (Top 6 stars) Scorpius
Mesario 1a) Shaula & 1b) Antares 1a) Lambda Scorpii &1b) Alpha Scorpii
Luubw Southern Cross(rising or setting) Crux
Machemeias Southern Cross(at 45° over SE horizon) Crux
Wuliwuliluubw Southern Cross(upright) Crux
Machemelito Southern Cross(at 45° over SW horizon) Crux