Navigational Ninjas

Underestimating the Human Mind

After memorizing a portion of King Benjamin's speech, it struck me how lazy my mind is. How often do I actually try to memorize knowledge? Rather, I find myself memorizing ways to find knowledge when I need it. Google, Wikipedia, topical guides, indexes-- this is how I stay on top of the information that I need. Our society reinforces this through the practice of standardized testing: students no longer need retain information; they just have to train their brains to recognize the right answers.

The more I learn about oral traditions, the more I lose respect for my own generation. Which brings me to my main point: the Polynesian Wayfinders.

In case you hadn't noticed, the Polynesian Triangle is HUGE. They navigated the lot of it-- all in open canoes.

 Navigating Ninjas

For centuries, the Western world grappled with the problem of Polynesia. What problem? Islands separated by more than twice the width of Canada not only shared linguistic and cultural nuances: they housed people that had traversed those distances across the open seas in open canoes with out so much as a magnetic compass to guide the way. How did this unique oceanic culture spread across such vast distances with such primitive technology?

Note the contrasts between the Western ship pictured on the left and the Polynesian canoe on the right.

Wade Davis, acclaimed anthropologist, elucidates this mystery in his book The Wayfinders. According to Polynesian lore, great navigators could call islands up out of the sea. The ships, they said, did not move: rather, they wait, "the axis mundi of the world, as the islands rise out of the sea to great [them]." They could find islands in the middle of a misty maze of open waters, far from any natural landmarks.

Imagine trying to find your way through the vast nothing-ness of the sea: with nothing but the waves to guide you.

How did they do it? Ancient navigators began their training in infancy by soaking for hours in tide pools to learn the rhythms of the sea. They learned not only which birds would lead them to land, but also how far from land each bird was willing to fly. For navigation in the open waters, they memorized hundreds of stars, memorized each point on the horizon where each star would rise and set. They learned to recognize patterns of clouds: which patterns signified land, which patterns would indicate an impending storm. When clouds or mist obscured the sky, these ancient Polynesian navigators could  find their way by reading the very ocean itself. Distant waves created patterns that the skilled navigator could distinguish and could divine such information as weather, location, and direction. They could even recognize the various rhythms associated with different island groups, because everybody knows every island has a different, unique pattern. "Every bit of data-- wind, currents, speed, direction, distance, time-- acquired over the course of a deep sea voyage, including the sequence of its acquisition, had to be stored within the memory of one person, the navigator" (The Wayfinders 61). Navigators didn't sleep: they sat trance like in the boat, awake for 22 hours at a time, only giving in to sleep when the mind could take no more.

They did all this without any cheat sheets. There were no reference books, no way to look up "what to do if you see this." They had no advanced navigational technology: no radar, no compass, no chronometer, no sextant. They didn't need it. They used the human mind, the most powerful tool known to man. Knowledge is important in any society, but the kind of knowledge possessed by these ancient navigators was knowledge their very lives depended on. Think about that next time you feel like complaining about memorizing a few facts for your next midterm.