Carolinian star compass and etak
Brújula estelar y etak de las Carolinas
- Date
- tradición milenaria; descrita en 1953-1972 · confidence low
- Place
- Satawal, Yap, Micronesia
- Credited to
- Carolinian navigators (Mau Piailug of Satawal), described by Goodenough, Gladwin and Lewis
- Field
- Movement
What it is
An oral system in which the horizon is divided into 32 star 'houses' and the navigator imagines a reference island moving under side stars (the etak) as the canoe advances. In this way he gauges distance covered without instruments.
The system is much older than its ethnographic record; the year given is that of the first descriptions (Goodenough 1953). Its origin and history cannot be dated.
What it led to
- long-range canoe navigation without instruments between atolls
- the 1976 Hōkūleʻa voyage guided by Mau Piailug
- studies of cognition and traditional wayfinding