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10 Studying the History of Spice Island Migration Through Cultural Diffusion
and east Africa to the west and that they did so before 1000 BC. In Part II we
shall provide evidence that in the same period they also discovered and settled New
Zealand to the south. We show in Part I that after about 600 years and perhaps 25
generations, the same feats were repeated by descendants of the first explorers and
colonists. These repeated maritime feats fulfil the predictions of our paradigm for
two waves of exploration and migration separated, between 1000 and 400 BC, by
the coldest global climate period in 6,000 years. In both eras we show the fulfilling of the prediction, implicit in our paradigm, that Spice Island mariners would
have reached and/or settled lands at the furthest limits to which fast warm currents
flowing out from the West Pacific Warm Pool could have carried them.
Traditional knowledge was the mainstay of Spice Island and Polynesian societies. It provided the basis for continuity and success. Horticultural knowledge and
experience stretching back thousands of years transformed the wild clove trees that
still grow on Halmahera into the highly evolved clove trees that were nurtured on its
five off-shore islands. Uniquely adapted to the microclimates of these five islands,
these trees produced cloves with intense perfume and taste and heightened medicinal properties. Cloves provided Spice Islanders with a unique trading item whose
value was so high because cloves such as these could not be grown anywhere else.
Astronomical knowledge learnt from their ancestors taught Spice Islanders not only
when to plant and harvest crops but how to navigate by the stars. The skills and
experience learnt in their West Pacific Warm Pool voyaging nursery taught them
how to build and sail stable, seaworthy double-outriggers, still used to this day in
Indonesia and the Indian Ocean. There we suggest that they learnt the techniques
for safely negotiating fast ocean currents that made it possible for them to become
international maritime traders 6,000 years ago and that enabled them three and a half
thousand years ago to colonize Madagascar, trade to the Middle East and Europe
through east Africa and to reach America. With knowledge of the predictable patterned behaviour of ocean currents, Spice Island mariners could use currents to lead
them to new lands and find reverse currents to take them safely home. Passing on
sailing directions for the new lands to their people opened up possibilities for future
colonizations.
Following powerful currents as an exploration strategy avoided the problems of
west–east sailing against the trade winds and currents in the southern Pacific. This
strategy made rapid exploration of parts of the vast Pacific and Indian Oceans possible. The early discovery of the largest islands, Madagascar and New Zealand, and
of the fertile Hawaiian Islands, provided migration targets which, in warm global
periods, were sought as refuges for defeated tribes and as lands to which their discoverers’ descendants migrated to claim land rights by virtue of their ancestors’
discovery of them.
Traditional histories endorse the historicity of migration paths predicted by our
paradigm. Tradition tells us that Maui the Navigator landed on the west coast of
the South Island of New Zealand where the diverging part of the fast warm East
Australian Current would have taken his canoe. Archaeological evidence shows that
both first- and second-wave Spice Island explorers were carried by the Kuro Shio
Current to predictable landfalls in southern California.
10 Studying the History of Spice Island Migration Through Cultural Diffusion
and east Africa to the west and that they did so before 1000 BC. In Part II we
shall provide evidence that in the same period they also discovered and settled New
Zealand to the south. We show in Part I that after about 600 years and perhaps 25
generations, the same feats were repeated by descendants of the first explorers and
colonists. These repeated maritime feats fulfil the predictions of our paradigm for
two waves of exploration and migration separated, between 1000 and 400 BC, by
the coldest global climate period in 6,000 years. In both eras we show the fulfilling of the prediction, implicit in our paradigm, that Spice Island mariners would
have reached and/or settled lands at the furthest limits to which fast warm currents
flowing out from the West Pacific Warm Pool could have carried them.
Traditional knowledge was the mainstay of Spice Island and Polynesian societies. It provided the basis for continuity and success. Horticultural knowledge and
experience stretching back thousands of years transformed the wild clove trees that
still grow on Halmahera into the highly evolved clove trees that were nurtured on its
five off-shore islands. Uniquely adapted to the microclimates of these five islands,
these trees produced cloves with intense perfume and taste and heightened medicinal properties. Cloves provided Spice Islanders with a unique trading item whose
value was so high because cloves such as these could not be grown anywhere else.
Astronomical knowledge learnt from their ancestors taught Spice Islanders not only
when to plant and harvest crops but how to navigate by the stars. The skills and
experience learnt in their West Pacific Warm Pool voyaging nursery taught them
how to build and sail stable, seaworthy double-outriggers, still used to this day in
Indonesia and the Indian Ocean. There we suggest that they learnt the techniques
for safely negotiating fast ocean currents that made it possible for them to become
international maritime traders 6,000 years ago and that enabled them three and a half
thousand years ago to colonize Madagascar, trade to the Middle East and Europe
through east Africa and to reach America. With knowledge of the predictable patterned behaviour of ocean currents, Spice Island mariners could use currents to lead
them to new lands and find reverse currents to take them safely home. Passing on
sailing directions for the new lands to their people opened up possibilities for future
colonizations.
Following powerful currents as an exploration strategy avoided the problems of
west–east sailing against the trade winds and currents in the southern Pacific. This
strategy made rapid exploration of parts of the vast Pacific and Indian Oceans possible. The early discovery of the largest islands, Madagascar and New Zealand, and
of the fertile Hawaiian Islands, provided migration targets which, in warm global
periods, were sought as refuges for defeated tribes and as lands to which their discoverers’ descendants migrated to claim land rights by virtue of their ancestors’
discovery of them.
Traditional histories endorse the historicity of migration paths predicted by our
paradigm. Tradition tells us that Maui the Navigator landed on the west coast of
the South Island of New Zealand where the diverging part of the fast warm East
Australian Current would have taken his canoe. Archaeological evidence shows that
both first- and second-wave Spice Island explorers were carried by the Kuro Shio
Current to predictable landfalls in southern California.