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I asked this same question in an anthropology class @ University of Hawaii.
prof: well, how have humans usually found new places?
me: by just… exploring? you can’t blindly wander the ocean tho, it’s too dangerous
prof: and exploring the land isn’t? i think the issue is you look at the ocean as an obstacle, whereas polynesians do not. in their eyes, the ocean is a highway
Hi Everyone,
This post is popular and that is wonderful. I want to encourage everyone joining us from r/all (and everyone else) to please take a look through the rules before participating, we are unfortunately a bit of a strict sub.
In particular rule 3: Top level comments must be written explanations. There are excellent books, articles, and documentaries on this topic, it is *not* a sufficient answer to just tell OP to go check one of those out. You can include a suggestion to do so with an original explanation of the topic in the title, but the meat of your explanation needs to be your own.
Please let me know if you have any questions and otherwise enjoy.
For Hawaii, which is one of the more remote groups of islands, two possibilities come to mind:
Pumice. Hawaii is volcanic, and while most eruptions are the familiar rivers of lava [there are exceptions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keanakakoi_eruption). The maps I see online show a current flowing westwards from Hawaii, so if the Polynesians encountered relatively fresh pumice coming from the east they would suspect there might be land there.
Those same currents would carry rafts of terrestrial vegetation torn loose by heavy rains, which would be an even stronger indication of land to the east.
They didn’t have magnetic compass so they used stars or bright planets such as Venus and Jupiter to navigate during the night. During day time they use the sun to navigate.
When near an island there would be birds and cloud formation. The Māori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa with one literal translation as ‘the land of the long white cloud’ given by them when they discovered the North Island.
The Māori voyagers also used whales to find land in this case it was the Humpback whale. They believed that by following whales they would be led to land as whales give birth in calmer water near atolls or islands. Whales travel slowly at around 3 to 5 knots thus making them easy to follow.
This is the [source](https://teara.govt.nz/en/canoe-navigation/page-3) about finding land.
[Here](https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori-origins-and-arrivals) are the different stories about the Māori origins and arrival.
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what I was told on Tonga, was that in addition to things mentioned already like birds and waves bouncing off land. Such as, feeling turbulence, or a “wake” thrown off by islands as the ocean currents cut around them. you sail into that, feel it, and follow it to land. Then another thing was, apparently, there are relatively consistent swells that come from the same direction, we don’t notice them because of all the surface waves, but the skilled navigators could pick them up and use them as a reference, I think also they might get disturbed or blocked by a land mass, not so sure about that last bit, or any of it, I went to Tonga once and it was badass
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There’s a lot of good information here, but I haven’t seen anyone directly answer the original question. The navigation methods people are discussing are all correct, but to answer, yes, they did pick a direction and just sail off.
When they were heading to a familiar location, they would sail north or south to the precise latitude, then head east or west. There’s no way to measure longitude without a precise chronometer, which wasn’t developed until pretty late in history by the Europeans. However, they could estimate with a sufficient accuracy. Their latitude measurements were incredibly precise. Over the course of hundreds of miles, they could come within a few miles of the exact spot they wanted by the use of a type of [astrolabe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrolabe) literally made from a coconut shell.
If, instead, they were exploring in search of new lands, they would choose a compass heading and go off for 10 days. If they didn’t find any evidence of land, using the methods others have already described as well as some additional ones, like types of fish encountered, they would reverse course.
This brings up a very interesting historical mystery. Hawai’i is much farther away from the rest of Polynesia than the other island groups. It was settled from the Marquesas Islands, which are 20 days sail away. The voyagers would carry 24 days worth of supplies on exploration missions: 10 out, 10 back, 4 days reserve for storms and such. How did they discover an island chain twice as far away as they normally explored?
The conventional explanation for decades was that they simply got lost, a ridiculous theory as soon as you learn anything about Polynesian wayfinding. [Thor Heyerdal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl) proposed that ancient people could have crossed the Pacific and even proved it with in a ship made from traditional materials. He got the direction wrong, going east to west, but he at least laid the groundwork for believability.
Polynesians have insisted for all the time they have been in contact with others that their ancestors settled the Pacific deliberately. In 1973 the [Polynesian Voyaging Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_Voyaging_Society) was founded to prove that the oral history was accurate. The [Hōkūleʻa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dk%C5%ABle%CA%BBa) was built as a replica of traditional Polynesian ships for that purpose. In 1976, she completed a journey to Tahiti using only traditional Polynesian Voyaging techniques. She has completed several other journeys since then. A sister ship, the Hikianalia was built along the same design, but using only traditional materials. This ship is equally capable of voyaging, but isn’t used as much because of the vastly increased maintenance needed. Both ships completed a three-year circumnavigation of the entire globe on a goodwill mission, visiting indigenous communities around the world. There’s no evidence that the Polynesians ever left the Pacific, but we know know they could have if they wanted to.
So, back to the mystery of Hawai’i’s discovery. The oral history says that a legendary navigator named Hawai’i Loa was given a vision from God to sail on a certain heading in order to find paradise. He set out on a trip that would be one-way if he didn’t find his destination. There are many ways to rationalize the discovery with reasonable explanations, but if you ask nearly any Hawaiian, they will insist the story is true. The one thing we know know for sure is that the Polynesians were fully capable of settling the Pacific using the technology they had at the time.
As many have pointed out, various techniques involving the use of the sun/stars, wave patterns, wind patterns, etc. Polynesians were highly skilled navigators and they passed down these skills for generations. They did not find the islands accidentally as many would have you believe. If you are interested in further reading, I suggest researching people such as Nainoa Thompson, Mau Piailug, and Herb Kāne.
If you are interested in the cultural significance of your question, I recommend the book Hawaiki Rising by Sam Low. Navigation was/is a critical aspect of Polynesian culture, and the identities of the Polynesian people is very closely tied with the ocean. With the successful voyages of the Hōkūle’a beginning in the mid-to-late-70s there was a Polynesian cultural revival (specifically Hawaiian) that provided a renewed perspective on how these people navigated and how remarkably brilliant they were.
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