336
19 Correlation of Significant Voyaging Activity with Rare Extreme Climate Events
as the moment when a chief’s son is acknowledged as having attained chiefly status
and/or takes command of a canoe. It is, of course, possible for two or even three
generations of navigators to be simultaneously sailing the ocean, as in the traditional
story of Toi voyaging to New Zealand in search of his grandson Whatonga and his
nephew Turahui.
Chronologically, the way we have chosen for defining the boundaries of generations links the period of peak activity in a navigator’s life with events most likely
to be recorded in tradition. We take the moment when a navigator takes command
of his first waka (canoe) as the moment his voyaging generation begins. For example, Kahukura’s leading of major migrations in the Pacific, described in Chapter 18,
would be correlated not with his father’s death and his own accession to power but
with the precise year when El Niño conditions both triggered and favoured his leading a migration fleet and settling 2,000 migrants on a range of islands in the Pacific.
In Paikea’s case, we see his accession to manhood marked, not by the death of his
father, but by his leading of a punitive expedition against Tawheta some months
before the solar eclipse of 1383. Since chronological precision is our aim, and since
our chronology is based on the feats of navigators, this approach has been adopted
as pragmatic.
The greater the cultural value ascribed to a genealogy, the more likely it is to
be intact and complete. Working within its bounds enables its inherent consistency
to assist in shaping a chronology from the genealogical data it preserves. The 93generation Rarotongan genealogy, reproduced in Appendix 1, derives from the last
high priest of Rarotonga, Te Ariki Tara ‘Are, whose training pre-dated European
contact [13]. Through this Rarotongan genealogy we can follow the history of maritime activity in the Pacific back to the beginning of the second wave of exploration
and migration just after 400 BC. We begin by considering part of this early history
for which we have El Niño low Nile proxy data.
19.7 Two Polynesian Voyages of Exploration to the Antarctic
AD 1403, our estimated most likely date for the Heke, and the 1383 eclipse on
which this dating depends are our starting points. Our first step in constructing a
chronology for the prehistory of the southern Pacific is to date two famous voyages
from a much earlier period in the exploration of the Pacific. We depend centrally
on the low Nile flood data (which as we have seen is a reliable El Niño climate
proxy) for dating the famous voyages to the Antarctic of Ui-te-Rangiora and of Te
Arutanga-a-Nuku who re-enacted Ui-te-Rangiora’s exploit 13 generations or about
300 years later. These two explorations of the great southern ocean and the Antarctic
surely rank as the most ambitious and difficult long-distance voyages known to have
been undertaken by Polynesian navigators. These voyages sailed into the highest
latitudes reached by Polynesian voyagers. In normal conditions the risk of hypothermia would be insurmountable. But both explorers returned home to tell their tales
19 Correlation of Significant Voyaging Activity with Rare Extreme Climate Events
as the moment when a chief’s son is acknowledged as having attained chiefly status
and/or takes command of a canoe. It is, of course, possible for two or even three
generations of navigators to be simultaneously sailing the ocean, as in the traditional
story of Toi voyaging to New Zealand in search of his grandson Whatonga and his
nephew Turahui.
Chronologically, the way we have chosen for defining the boundaries of generations links the period of peak activity in a navigator’s life with events most likely
to be recorded in tradition. We take the moment when a navigator takes command
of his first waka (canoe) as the moment his voyaging generation begins. For example, Kahukura’s leading of major migrations in the Pacific, described in Chapter 18,
would be correlated not with his father’s death and his own accession to power but
with the precise year when El Niño conditions both triggered and favoured his leading a migration fleet and settling 2,000 migrants on a range of islands in the Pacific.
In Paikea’s case, we see his accession to manhood marked, not by the death of his
father, but by his leading of a punitive expedition against Tawheta some months
before the solar eclipse of 1383. Since chronological precision is our aim, and since
our chronology is based on the feats of navigators, this approach has been adopted
as pragmatic.
The greater the cultural value ascribed to a genealogy, the more likely it is to
be intact and complete. Working within its bounds enables its inherent consistency
to assist in shaping a chronology from the genealogical data it preserves. The 93generation Rarotongan genealogy, reproduced in Appendix 1, derives from the last
high priest of Rarotonga, Te Ariki Tara ‘Are, whose training pre-dated European
contact [13]. Through this Rarotongan genealogy we can follow the history of maritime activity in the Pacific back to the beginning of the second wave of exploration
and migration just after 400 BC. We begin by considering part of this early history
for which we have El Niño low Nile proxy data.
19.7 Two Polynesian Voyages of Exploration to the Antarctic
AD 1403, our estimated most likely date for the Heke, and the 1383 eclipse on
which this dating depends are our starting points. Our first step in constructing a
chronology for the prehistory of the southern Pacific is to date two famous voyages
from a much earlier period in the exploration of the Pacific. We depend centrally
on the low Nile flood data (which as we have seen is a reliable El Niño climate
proxy) for dating the famous voyages to the Antarctic of Ui-te-Rangiora and of Te
Arutanga-a-Nuku who re-enacted Ui-te-Rangiora’s exploit 13 generations or about
300 years later. These two explorations of the great southern ocean and the Antarctic
surely rank as the most ambitious and difficult long-distance voyages known to have
been undertaken by Polynesian navigators. These voyages sailed into the highest
latitudes reached by Polynesian voyagers. In normal conditions the risk of hypothermia would be insurmountable. But both explorers returned home to tell their tales