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The Vaka Taumako Project

NEWSLETTER: JANUARY 2000   Aloha and Happy New Year/Century/Millenium to you all! AND SPEAKING OF A NEW MILLENIUM: The following dialogue occurred in the weight room of the Kaua'i Athletic Club on the afternoon of 31 December. It began when Meph saw the wall clock doing the "Battery Bop" and pointed this out to Sam, the weight room boss. M. Hey, Sam, this clock needs a new battery! Look at it! S. Aww-no, it's Y2K. It's starting already! M. (Chuckles) Yeah, right. S. You know, I bet those Taumako people aren't worried about this Y2K business. They've got it right; they know how to work with their hands.... M. That's true, they can survive off the land... S. ...they can survive, they don't need to worry about computers crashing. All the stuff we're upset about, it won't bother them any. M. Yeah, and we think we're so smart. S. Isn't that the truth? No way; they're the smart ones. They know what's important.           ...Doesn't that put things in perspective?      AND NOW FOR SOME NEWS:   AN UPDATE ON THE RETURN OF THE VAKA TAUMAKO from Nifiloli to Duffs: As of 11 January, Paramount Chief Koloso and his crew are waiting to board the next ship that stops at Taumako and go to Nifiloli in the Reefs where they will work on repairs to the canoe and await an favorable (i.e. westerly) wind to sail it home. Why haven't they done this already, as they had planned? In Mid-October, the Chief noticed that the weather was behaving as it did in the La Nina year of 1998, when no westerlies blew in November-December, and predicted the same pattern for 1999. He then decided to postpone sail preparations until transport to the Reefs arrived in early 2000. The Chief's wind-reading was right. (Another reason the Taumako did not have to worry about Y2K--though as it turned out, most of the rest of us did not either--those who can discern the face of the sky as Chief Koloso can need not fear malfunctions in weather satellites and other modern forecasting devices!) On hearing this, Mimi remarked, "Oh, if only there were two vaka now, they could just sail over to Nifiloli!" This is why we plan to build a large tealolili (fast, passenger carrying canoe) at Taumako later this year after the canoe house is ready. (see below) KAUA'I NEWS: We've moved! A donation by Shirley Pasant for administratve expenses has enabled us to set up a real office. The Pacific Traditions Society Resource Center and Archive at 3408 'Eono St. in Lihu'e will soon be open to those wanting to learn more about the Project or who are researching related topics. If you would like to make an appointment to stop in, please call Healani at: 001 808 245 7133 You are invited to a housewarming potluck for the new Center on Sunday, 30 January, at 1600. We hope to see you all. To get up-to-the-minute information on this and other goings-on, those of you who are wired to the Web can check out a new Current Events column that Larry the Webwizard has recently posted on our site (www.planet-hawaii.com/vaka) Speaking of our website, we haven't moved that yet, but Larry and Meph have been reorganizing it. One bit of reorganization we hope to do soon is to obtain a new address that will be easier for people to remember and use. SPEAKING OF NEW ADDRESSES: Please note that the Project's P.O. Box number is now 662224. (The rest of our address is still: Lihu'e HI 96766 USA) Puhi Post Office moved out of its old trailer and into new digs, including new boxes with new numbers. Mail addressed to Box 2224 will still be delivered for a few months, but the sooner everyone begins using the new number, the happier the post office staff will be.      Publication news   We have also been doing some writing. An article by Mimi appeared in the July '99 issue of Sailing New Zealand magazine. This contains some hitherto unpublished information, including Chief Koloso's detailed description of the tepuke-building process. If you would like a copy, we can send you one for US$5.00. Mimi will also have an article in the May -June issue of Wooden Boat (Annual Boat Show issue). This promises to be an especially rich issue for anyone interested in Pacific voyaging traditions. Besides Mimi's article, rumor hath it that there will be others on the subject of traditional Oceanic voyaging and canoes. An article by Meph will be in the July issue of Pacific Arts. Mimi has begun writing a book. She has also written a chapter called "Lata Returns to the Future" for Ben Finney and Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa's new book on the future of Polynesian voyaging. This East-West Center publication should be coming out later this year. We shall keep you posted.      Miscellaneous newsitems:   For those of you on Kaua'i: Carol Bain has invited Mimi and Meph to talk about the Project on her radio show on KQNG, Tuesday, 18 January at 1100 a.m. Tune in, and phone in if you have questions. (If you want to help us out, ask some easy ones; make us sound knowledgeable.) Healani and Meph hope to do a presentation in Portland OR on 10 & 11 March. We do not have details of this yet. If you want to attend, contact Healani (office number: 808 245 7133) for more information. We were delighted that the video Vaka Taumako, the First Voyage was shown on O'ahu, Maui, Kaua'i and Big Island as part of the Hawai'i International Film Festival in November. Meph attended the Kaua'i showing, and received some approving comments from audience members. She also heard from several people who regretted having been unable to make the event. Perhaps we shall schedule another public showing. In late March and early April, Mimi and Meph will be in New Zealand to check on repair work on the Project support vessel, Gryphon. Besides this, they hope to confer with museum and university experts in Polynesian voyaging. Mimi and Kay Thompson continue to work on applying for grants. For the year 2000 we have funding that allows us to maintain our office and storage facility and to do some writing for publication and grants. What we need is money for:     1) Construction of the canoe house at Taumako. This will cost about US$16,000 for a) roofing iron and paint, b) safe storage for videos, books, and tools, c) tools and food for the laborers d) documentation of the building process, e) a small salary for a custodian, and f) airfare and expenses for the Principal Investigator to observe the process.     2) Digital mastering of the raw video footage from 1996-99. This is a high priority. This precious record, especially the VHS-C tapes from 1996-97, is fast deteriorating. Digitizing alone will probably cost about $5000. If we buy equipment which will give us editing and mastering capability for the future, the minimum cost will be about $5000. Of this, $3000 would be for the computer, the remainder for software.     3) Preparations for sailing a te alo to Port Vila, Vanuatu for the Second Melanesian Cultural Festival in 2001. This will include accomodation, food, building/maintenance for the canoe, documentation, airfares for VTP staff, crew etc.     4) Traveling expenses for a group of Taumako to travel to Kaua'i in October-November to continue work on the te alo that the 1999 delegates started to make. With minimal funding (about $6000/each plus airfare and accomodation for their escort), a small group (3 or 4) could work just on the canoe for seven weeks. This would mean no craft demonstrations, conferences, etc.; a very low-key visit. We also need funds to keep this newsletter going (coming?) out. Even though the work of writing and mailing is donated by volunteers, postage, envelopes, paper, photocopying etc. for our mailing list of about 500 people still cost us about $2000/year. We customarily send newsletters to our regular donors as a courtesy. For those of you who are not donors, we ask you to send us $15/year if you want to continue to receive the newsletter through the mail. If you would like to receive it over the Internet, please give us your email address. We hope eventually to expand this publication to include more than just little newsitems. If possible, we want to print articles by Chief Koloso, Mimi, and others on such subjects as the Wind Compass, traditonal Taumako healing arts, custom stories, etc. Finally, some of you have asked how you could help out even if you cannot afford to donate money. We would be delighted to have volunteers to address and stuff envelopes for the next newsletter mailing, iron t-shirts from our storage, booth sit at craft fairs, or help out with the next cultural exchange. If you want to do any of these things, please talk to Healani at the office.