A Conversation with Filmmaker, Na'alehu Anthony

Piece Description

During the 1970s, a small group of Hawai'ians formed the Polynesian Voyaging Society with the goal of building a canoe in the ancient style. Their dream was to sail the double-hulled canoe, named Hokule'a from Hawaii to Tahiti using traditional navigation: the stars, the wind, and the sea. The problem was they were missing a critical piece: the ancient art of navigation was lost in Hawaii. To recreate the ocean paths recounted in oral traditions, the Hawaiian sailors turned to a man from the tiny island of Satawal in Micronesia. Mau Piailug or Papa Mau was a wayfinder. He held the secrets to open sea canoe navigation and he was eager to share them.

He agreed not only to serve as navigator on the maiden voyage of the Hokule'a from Hawaii to Tahiti but he became a teacher and mentor to Hawaiians who wanted to reclaim this heritage. That union of navigator and canoe had a tremendous impact not just in Hawaii but across the Pacific, generating an interest in the ancient art of boat building and navigation as far away as New Zealand. It had awakened such pride and interest in Hawaiian culture that the period became known as the Hawaiian Renaissance. And  It also demonstrated that the Pacific Islands could have been deliberately colonized by people arriving from the west, giving the people of the islands a sense of their ancient forebearers, the original voyagers.

Na'alehu Anthony 's film Papa Mau:The Wayfinder. documents the lasting legacy and central role of navigator Mau Piailug, in the revival of  the art of traditional voyaging and the subsequent reawakening of cultural pride throughout Polynesia. His film traces the thirty years of interaction between Papa Mau and his Hawaiian students and contains extraordinary footage from the 1976 maiden voyage of the Hokule'a.