Marshall Islands stick chart
Carta de palos de las islas Marshall
- Date
- documentada desde 1862 (práctica anterior) · confidence low
- Place
- Jaluit, Marshall Islands
- Credited to
- Marshallese navigators
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Structures of palm-frond ribs and shells representing how swells refract and cross around the islands. They were memorised on land and taught how to read the sea with the body in the canoe.
Europeans described it in the second half of the 19th century (Winkler, 1898); its true antiquity is unknown.
What it led to
- teaching of wave-based navigation
- modern study of indigenous oceanography