5.7 A Summary
99
and Japan. That, as Kumar and Rose establish, culturally the two areas were still
powerfully connected in the early centuries BC and AD through a Yayoi colony
suggests the continuing importance of the Kuro Shio Current. Traditional records of
several second-wave colonizations of Hawaii from the Spice Islands via Micronesia,
including Irapanga’s migration to Hawaii in about AD 460, serve also to establish
the long life and the continuing importance of this trading and migration path.
There is further evidence for both first-wave and second-wave Spice Island
colonies in southern Japan implicit in the archaeological evidence detailed in
our next chapter. There we present clear archaeological evidence from southern
California for first-wave Spice Island contact with America before 1000 BC and
archaeological and linguistic evidence for second-wave contact after about AD 300.
Southern California is the landfall to which the Kuro Shio Current would have carried a double-outrigger voyaging from the Spice Islands to the east coast of America
via Micronesia, Japan and Hawaii. That the Kuro Shio Current was an exploration,
trading and migration path for a very long time is clear. And that both Japan and
Hawaii would have acted as rest and supply stations en route to southern California
in both periods seems probable.
In Chapter 4 we presented evidence from oral traditions preserved in both Hawaii
and New Zealand for both first- and second-wave migrations to Hawaii and mentioned the exploratory voyage to Hawaii by Maui the Navigator recorded in Maori
traditions. Three hundred and sixty years later a migration fleet of six canoes was
led by Maui’s descendant Irapanga, following the Kuro Shio Current from the Spice
Island region through Micronesia to Hawaii. This migration can be dated from a
Rarotongan genealogy to about AD 460 (see Chapter 19). Tradition tells us that
these migrants settled on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian group. Evidence in the
next chapter for technological diffusion along the Kuro Shio route which involves
all three staging posts – Micronesia, Japan and Hawaii – offers consilient substantiation for the early and later colonizations of Hawaii recorded in tradition. Our
circumstantial case for a very early first-wave Spice Island colony in Japan possibly
5,700 years ago suggests that the Kuro Shio Current could have been used as an
exploration, trading and migration path for over 4,500 years.
5.7 A Summary
Neither the Spice Island colonizations of Japan nor of Madagascar have been a significant focus for Pacific researchers but both are clearly part of the wider pattern of
Lapita-age maritime colonizations from the Spice Island region, to which the colonizations of Micronesia, Remote Oceania, Island Melanesia, Western Polynesia and,
we shall argue, New Zealand belong. That both Japan and Madagascar along with
Hawaii and New Zealand could be reached by exploiting fast warm currents flowing
out from the West Pacific Warm Pool is significant and supports the paradigm we
develop that shows how the primary sailing and exploration strategy of following
currents flowing out from the West Pacific Warm Pool determined major migration
99
and Japan. That, as Kumar and Rose establish, culturally the two areas were still
powerfully connected in the early centuries BC and AD through a Yayoi colony
suggests the continuing importance of the Kuro Shio Current. Traditional records of
several second-wave colonizations of Hawaii from the Spice Islands via Micronesia,
including Irapanga’s migration to Hawaii in about AD 460, serve also to establish
the long life and the continuing importance of this trading and migration path.
There is further evidence for both first-wave and second-wave Spice Island
colonies in southern Japan implicit in the archaeological evidence detailed in
our next chapter. There we present clear archaeological evidence from southern
California for first-wave Spice Island contact with America before 1000 BC and
archaeological and linguistic evidence for second-wave contact after about AD 300.
Southern California is the landfall to which the Kuro Shio Current would have carried a double-outrigger voyaging from the Spice Islands to the east coast of America
via Micronesia, Japan and Hawaii. That the Kuro Shio Current was an exploration,
trading and migration path for a very long time is clear. And that both Japan and
Hawaii would have acted as rest and supply stations en route to southern California
in both periods seems probable.
In Chapter 4 we presented evidence from oral traditions preserved in both Hawaii
and New Zealand for both first- and second-wave migrations to Hawaii and mentioned the exploratory voyage to Hawaii by Maui the Navigator recorded in Maori
traditions. Three hundred and sixty years later a migration fleet of six canoes was
led by Maui’s descendant Irapanga, following the Kuro Shio Current from the Spice
Island region through Micronesia to Hawaii. This migration can be dated from a
Rarotongan genealogy to about AD 460 (see Chapter 19). Tradition tells us that
these migrants settled on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian group. Evidence in the
next chapter for technological diffusion along the Kuro Shio route which involves
all three staging posts – Micronesia, Japan and Hawaii – offers consilient substantiation for the early and later colonizations of Hawaii recorded in tradition. Our
circumstantial case for a very early first-wave Spice Island colony in Japan possibly
5,700 years ago suggests that the Kuro Shio Current could have been used as an
exploration, trading and migration path for over 4,500 years.
5.7 A Summary
Neither the Spice Island colonizations of Japan nor of Madagascar have been a significant focus for Pacific researchers but both are clearly part of the wider pattern of
Lapita-age maritime colonizations from the Spice Island region, to which the colonizations of Micronesia, Remote Oceania, Island Melanesia, Western Polynesia and,
we shall argue, New Zealand belong. That both Japan and Madagascar along with
Hawaii and New Zealand could be reached by exploiting fast warm currents flowing
out from the West Pacific Warm Pool is significant and supports the paradigm we
develop that shows how the primary sailing and exploration strategy of following
currents flowing out from the West Pacific Warm Pool determined major migration