From Stars to Sea: The Exploratory Legacy of Ancient Hawaiians by Justin Hougland
“I have never before met with the natives of any place so much astonished, as these people were, upon entering a ship.” The famous words of Captain James Cook regarding his first contact with the Hawaiian people set the stage for the American perception of Hawaiian history. The American and European education systems would go on to claim that Hawaiians were an isolated and passive – even non-exploratory – civilization. These world powers created a narrative that Europeans saved the Hawaiian people from a “barbaric” existence, even though the Hawaiians were a self-sufficient population sustaining symbiotic trade relations with surrounding islands in the Pacific Basin long before the introduction of Europeans. Evidence of this can be found in stories from hundreds of years ago. The Legends and Myths of Hawaii: The Fables and Folk-Lore of a Strange People is a compilation of stories written and collected by His Hawaiian Majesty Kalakaua, created to preserve Hawaiian oral tradition and stories throughout the centuries. One story, in particular, “Kelea, the Surf-Rider of Maui,” offers insight into the knowledge of the Hawaiians circa 1445. The story details the journey of Kelea and Kalamakua as they travel across the Hawaiian archipelago. This chapter helps us understand the vast knowledge of Hawaii in ancient times because the Western narrative of the Hawaiian people dramatically misunderstood Hawaii’s history and culture. Contrary to prevailing Eurocentric narratives, Hawaiians were not an isolated and passive civilization but rather an intensely exploratory society with deep knowledge of navigation and trade in the Pacific Basin. Through an analysis of oral traditions and scholarly research, it becomes evident that Hawaiians actively engaged in long-distance exploration and trade long before the arrival of Europeans, challenging the traditional portrayal of their history and culture.
The most intriguing parts of the story of Kelea and Kalamakua were the passing comments made by the narrator during the couple's journey across the sea. Throughout their journey, Kalamakua relies on the stars and the well-known “trade winds” to transport Kelea across the Hawaiian island chain (Kalakaua). When taking to the open sea and trusting in their knowledge of trade winds and celestial navigation, it is clear that the ancient Hawaiians had a strong understanding of the night sky and well-known sea routes to move around the archipelago and beyond. The story also shows how skilled the Hawaiians were in sea travel because as the “sea surged in fury, and like a cockleshell the canoe was tossed from one huge wave to another…. Kalamakua kept the little craft squarely before the wind as a measure of first importance, his company earnestly employed in alternately baling and trimming as emergency suggested.” This quote describes the proficiency of the mariners and their survival of a dreadful storm on a small canoe, implying that they have significant experience in dealing with the unpredictability of the sea. The proficiency of the Hawaiian sailors, as described in the story, is substantiated by the findings of David A. Chang. The quote implies that long-distance exploration and trade between archipelagos in the Polynesian Sea were fundamental to Hawaiian culture. The Hawaiians were also active traders with peoples beyond the archipelago. According to Chang’s book “The World and All Things Upon It,” the Kanaka tribe in Hawaii was well integrated with other Polynesian islands. The Hawaiians knew they lived on an archipelago and explored much of the islands long before James Cook shored on their land in 1778. Chang maintains that the Kānake Maoli explored the Hawaiian islands and maintained interrelations with surrounding archipelagos in the Pacific Basin from 300-1400CE. The Kanaka people were able to do this through “astonishing long-distance canoe voyages… between Hawai’i and the far-off archipelagos that included Tahiti, Sāmoa, Nuku Hiva, and Hiva Oa, two thousand miles to the south.” The practice of long-distance canoe voyages explains why a minor storm on an intra-archipelago voyage didn’t faze Kalamakua and his crew much.
The Hawaiians’ expertise in canoeing further supports that Hawaiians played an active role in the South Pacific economy, opposing claims that the Hawaiians were isolated. Gregory Rosenthal, author of “Life and Labor in a Seabird Colony: Hawaiian Guano Workers,” claims “a long history of Hawaiian participation in the American exploration and exploitation of the Pacific.” This quote directly illustrates Hawaiians’ active engagement with the Pacific Ocean, whether with other Polynesian Islands or Europeans. Though Rosenthal’s excerpt discusses Hawaiians after European contact, he shows that Hawaiians were eager to engage in the Pacific Ocean, likely because they had already been doing so for years, unbeknownst to the Europeans. This interconnectedness between Hawaii and other Polynesian Islands is further corroborated by “Our Sea of Islands,” written by Epeli Hau’ofa. Hau’ofa argues that while Europeans view islands in Oceania as distinct and discrete peoples, the islanders view each other fundamentally as one, connected through trade and cultural exchange. Cooperation between islands was vital to the prosperity of Polynesia as a whole, and to claim that Hawaii was an isolated island is an evident Euro-centric distortion of reality. The interdependence between archipelagos explains why Kalamakua was proficient in sailing and navigating; sailing was a fundamental aspect of their culture due to long-distance trade.
Beyond economic implications, Chang proved that the Hawaiians were exceptionally exploratory people. The Kānaka sailed thousands of miles via canoe to explore the surrounding ocean, and they may not have even been convinced that there were other landmasses. Over time, however, the Kānaka learned that there was more land beyond the group of archipelagos in the South Pacific Ocean. They came to this realization by observing the migratory patterns of birds. They realized that the birds on their islands never reproduced there, so there must have been a distant land the birds flew to for reproduction. Though the Kanaka people couldn’t sail to these distant lands, it was the only reasonable explanation for the birds’ strange behavior. Thus, the Kānaka derived that northern landmasses must exist, even though those lands were unreachable with their current technology. The arrival of Captain Cook proved their theory hundreds of years later.
Around 1300 CE, scholars determined that Hawaii did enter a more isolated period of its history. Scholars argue that this is likely due to shifting wind patterns in the Pacific Ocean, which made the Hawaiians existing sea routes obsolete. It wasn’t until James Cook arrived that the Hawaiians' engagement with the rest of the Pacific Ocean was reignited, and many traveled to North America for business opportunities or a chance to find gold in the famous California Gold Rush of 1849. Despite a period of isolation, Hawaiians were very active in the Pacific Basin using the age-old story of Kelea and support from Chang, Hau’ofa, and Rosenthal. They created strong bonds between the islands of their archipelago and several archipelago in the Polynesian Sea. Beyond the Southern Pacific Ocean and distant land masses, Hawaiians were also curious about what lay beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. The story of Kelea conveys that as a result of celestial categorization, “[f]ive of the planets—Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn—were known to the ancient Hawaiians, and designated as na hoku aea, or wandering stars. The fixed stars were also grouped by them into constellations.” Learning and categorizing the night sky is an intense process and requires curiosity to explore beyond their shores and the atmosphere. The organization of trade routes and constellations offers a strong case supporting the Hawaiians' exploratory nature, which dates back to around 300 CE. Moving forward, Americans must avoid hiding the rich history of colonized peoples and encourage the celebration of native heritages. If people are subject to belittlement for too long, it becomes internalized, and they develop apathy and a sense of hopelessness for a life destined for mediocrity.
Works Cited
Chang, David A. The World and All the Things upon It: Native Hawaiian Geographies of Exploration. 1st ed., University of Minnesota Press, 2016.
Hau‘ofa, Epeli. “Our Sea of Islands.” Lagoonscapes, vol. 3, no. 2, 2023, https://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2023/02/002.
Kalakaua, David, King Of Hawaii. The legends and myths of Hawaii: the fables and folk-lore of a strange people. New York: Charles L. Webster, 1888. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
Rosenthal, Gregory. “Life and Labor in a Seabird Colony: Hawaiian Guano Workers, 1857-70.” Environmental History, vol. 17, no. 4, 2012, pp. 744–82, https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/ems079.
