Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 27, Number 8, 1 August 2010 — More than a navigator, Mau was navigation itself [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

More than a navigator, Mau was navigation itself

By Lisa Asato KaWai Ola Thirty five years after first meeting master navigator Mau Piailug, Nainoa Thompson sits in the waning daylight at Lāna'i Lookout, a rocky outcropping in East O 'ahu that looks out to Moloka'i and Lāna'i in the distance, to remember the man he calls "genius" and "one in a hillion."

"His contributions are global," said Thompson, describing himself as one of Piailug's 1,000 students from Hawai'i, New Zealand, Rapa Nui, Cook Islands, lapan, Tahiti and Micronesia who have benefitted from his compassion, knowledge and foresight to share his knowledge before it was too late. "When you look at the importance of preserving (traditional navigation) for the earth, for human kind, and doing it from that compassionate side of him that always moves us to a mueh more peaceful plaee as human beings, he did all of those things, and I would argue in a very humhle way that I'm the luckiest student on earth to have such

extraordinary teachers like Mau, and Eddie ( Aikau) and my dad (Myron Thompson) and others." Piailug died July 1 1 at the age of 78 and was buried on his home island of Satawal in Micronesia. Piailug's impact on Native Hawaiians - and voyaging in the Pacific as a whole - began in 1976, when he navigated the double-hulled sailing eanoe Hōkūle'a on its historic voyage from Hawai'i to Tahiti relying solely on traditional navigation techniques of observation of the stars, wind, current, clouds, moon and birds. The Polynesian Voyaging Society hadn't planned voyages after that, but the experience sparked a fire

in the younger sailors. "Aboard the eanoe is where we found ourselves as Native Hawaiians - at sea in the wake of our ancestors," said Thompson, who was part of the return voyage to Hawai'i and who says he feels closer to his own ancestors because of his experiences. "I ean believe in them. I ean trust them and I have great admiration for the native people that eame before me," he said. "I trust that when we sail, our ancestors are with us. I know my dad is, and I would assume Mau

will be too." T h o m p s o n , a Kamehameha Schools Trustee, has eome to Lāna'i Lookout to reniember his friend and mentor. It's where the master brought hini to observe over and over again, as his training intensified. "Learning navigation is just being with him," Thompson said, and it's here that Piailug, a quiet man who spoke in broken English, showed his ability to focus, pay attention and not get distracted. He could reach that "zone" of navigation even though he wasn't sailing on a eanoe. It is here that he practiced, honed and shaped his mastery of navigation "by clearly connectins

to those things that he used to navigate, whether it's the heavens, the atmospheres and the oceans." As the sunset nears - a emeial time for a navigator, because it helps detennine your plan for the next 12 hours at sea, Thompson is surrounded by the familiar sights - the waxing moon, whieh indicates that tonight will be a bright night. And not so high in the sky, the clouds appear yellowishwhite (indicating no rain tonight) with flat bottoms and pointy tops. And even though it hasn't made an appearance yet, he waits for Mailap, Piailug's favorSEE MAU ON PAGE 13

j HE HO'OMANA'O ^ > IN MEMORIAM /

Mau Piailug helped keep traditional navigation alive. - KW0 file phoio: Sterling Wong

MAU Continued from page 04

ite star to appear, bearing in the East. All in all, Thompson says, the signs are saying it's going to be a good night for sailing.

To celebrate Piailug's memory, a sailing crew was to depart July 24 from O'ahu, stopping first at Kaua'i, on a seven-week, 1,300-mile voyage around the state to "the places in Hawai'i that Mau learned to love" and the connnunities that love him. Thompson has made about 25 deep-sea voyages on Hōkūle'a, nine of them with Piailug, starting in 1980, and he credits Piailug with having the foresight of seeing that what was happening to Hawaiians in the 1970s - the disenfranchisement in the face of westemization - would one day happen to his people. That's why Thompson believes

Piailug agreed to and pushed for sharing "fiercely protected" navigation traditions with the outside world - to keep it alive until his own people wanted "to learn the ways of old." Thompson said Mau was more than a navigator; he was navigation itself. He is the sky, the sea, the stars. ■ Nainoa Thompson is a Master Navigator and a Trustee of the Kamehameha SchooIs. He will always eonsider himself a student of Mau's.

E KALA MAI Jhis article has been corrected. In our print edition, the article incorrectly said that Piailug shared navigational knowledge because he predicted that his fellow Micronesians would one day ask Hawaiians to teach them navigation. Jhe art of navigation belongs to the Micronesians, and no disrespect of that relationship was intended. Jhe article should have read that Piailug shared navigation to keep it alive because he was afraid that Micronesians would struggle with cultural loss as Hawaiians had.