19.6 Sketching a Robust Chronology
335
circum-Pacific shifts in ITCZ position catalysed simultaneous events in civilizations on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean”, producing a Pacific-wide drought
severe enough to topple the Tang dynasty in China and to bring to an end the Mayan
civilization in Mesoamerica.
It seems likely that the Huguang Maar climate proxy data records (less precisely)
the severe El Niño of 903 recorded in the El Niño low Nile flood proxy data. The
latter has an annual resolution, the former claims only a near-annual resolution.
Rare associated circumstances support the likelihood that the El Niño of 903 was
associated with the famine at Hema’s birth. Other rare events enable us to date the
time of Paumakua (the solar eclipse in 1104 and the level 5 El Niño of 1096). The
combination of all these rare events and circumstances makes it possible to date with
certainty the moment at which, as tradition would have seen it, a unique source of
mana (the supernormal powers passed on by Whaitiri to her son Hema) at Hema’s
birth became part of an ancestral and tribal domain.
Some comment is needed on the issue of the transition from one generation to
another that is recorded in Polynesian genealogies. The level 5 El Niño gives an
exact date for Hema’s birth at AD 903. Traditionally, in Tahiti and amongst the
Heke immigrants and their descendants in New Zealand, the moment of transition from one generation to the next is seen as taking place on the death bed of
a chief. Polynesian genealogies are seen as recording the transmission of mana usually from a chief to his son as the chief lies dying. The son bites his father’s forehead,
metaphorically or symbolically taking into himself his father’s wisdom, knowledge
and spiritual power. Biting his father’s perenium, the son takes into himself his
father’s physical strength and male potency. More than this, he is seen as taking
into himself the spiritual power and strength of all preceding chiefs, which has been
cumulatively transmitted from chief to chief over generations. Maori thought of
this transmission of mana as marking the boundary between chiefly generations.
A later date of about 920 for Hema is thus more in keeping with the representation in genealogies of the timing of the transmission of chiefly mana between
generations as taking place not at birth but perhaps usually for a chief in young
manhood.
19.6 Sketching a Robust Chronology
Our approach to the task of sketching a robust chronology for oceanic migration in
the southern Pacific during the Medieval Climatic Optimum, from analysis of traditional genealogies in conjunction with El Niño proxy data, differs markedly from
that of earlier prehistorians. Our aim is to link the voyaging activities of navigators,
some of whose exploits are well recorded in tradition, with ENSO events recorded
in the Nile proxy data, for which dating is accurate to the year.
We are seeking to exploit the interface between the precise chronology that exists
for El Niño events in the low Nile proxy data and long-distance voyages recorded in
tradition. We have therefore chosen to take the boundary marker for each generation
335
circum-Pacific shifts in ITCZ position catalysed simultaneous events in civilizations on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean”, producing a Pacific-wide drought
severe enough to topple the Tang dynasty in China and to bring to an end the Mayan
civilization in Mesoamerica.
It seems likely that the Huguang Maar climate proxy data records (less precisely)
the severe El Niño of 903 recorded in the El Niño low Nile flood proxy data. The
latter has an annual resolution, the former claims only a near-annual resolution.
Rare associated circumstances support the likelihood that the El Niño of 903 was
associated with the famine at Hema’s birth. Other rare events enable us to date the
time of Paumakua (the solar eclipse in 1104 and the level 5 El Niño of 1096). The
combination of all these rare events and circumstances makes it possible to date with
certainty the moment at which, as tradition would have seen it, a unique source of
mana (the supernormal powers passed on by Whaitiri to her son Hema) at Hema’s
birth became part of an ancestral and tribal domain.
Some comment is needed on the issue of the transition from one generation to
another that is recorded in Polynesian genealogies. The level 5 El Niño gives an
exact date for Hema’s birth at AD 903. Traditionally, in Tahiti and amongst the
Heke immigrants and their descendants in New Zealand, the moment of transition from one generation to the next is seen as taking place on the death bed of
a chief. Polynesian genealogies are seen as recording the transmission of mana usually from a chief to his son as the chief lies dying. The son bites his father’s forehead,
metaphorically or symbolically taking into himself his father’s wisdom, knowledge
and spiritual power. Biting his father’s perenium, the son takes into himself his
father’s physical strength and male potency. More than this, he is seen as taking
into himself the spiritual power and strength of all preceding chiefs, which has been
cumulatively transmitted from chief to chief over generations. Maori thought of
this transmission of mana as marking the boundary between chiefly generations.
A later date of about 920 for Hema is thus more in keeping with the representation in genealogies of the timing of the transmission of chiefly mana between
generations as taking place not at birth but perhaps usually for a chief in young
manhood.
19.6 Sketching a Robust Chronology
Our approach to the task of sketching a robust chronology for oceanic migration in
the southern Pacific during the Medieval Climatic Optimum, from analysis of traditional genealogies in conjunction with El Niño proxy data, differs markedly from
that of earlier prehistorians. Our aim is to link the voyaging activities of navigators,
some of whose exploits are well recorded in tradition, with ENSO events recorded
in the Nile proxy data, for which dating is accurate to the year.
We are seeking to exploit the interface between the precise chronology that exists
for El Niño events in the low Nile proxy data and long-distance voyages recorded in
tradition. We have therefore chosen to take the boundary marker for each generation