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THE PACIFIC TRADITIONS SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
April 1998

SCARCELY ABLE TO CONTAIN THEIR JOY, Duff Islanders cheer the launching of three tepuke on 12 September, 1997 (Photo = Jim Bailey)

 

The Pacific Traditions Society Newsletter, April 1998 Aloha, supporters of the Vaka Taumako Project! We want to thank those of you who have been long-time Friends for your continuing faith in the project's goals, and to welcome those of you who have recently joined our rapidly expanding 'ohana (family). We have some exciting news for you all, but first a brief review of the project's accomplishments and goals: On 12 September, 1997, the Polynesian people of Taumako in the southeastern Solomon Islands launched a twelve meter tepue (traditional long-distance voyaging canoe) as the first step in their long-term program to revive, record, and teach their ancient skills of canoe building, sailing, and navigation. What distinguishes their canoe from other archaic types of voyaging craft built and sailed during the last several decades as part of the pacific cultural resurrection is that it is the only one made entirely from stone-age plant materials processed in stone-age ways and that will sail by stone-age navigational methods. Nga Taumako (the people of Taumako) can do this because: a) their physical and cultural isolation on a small island lying not only off major shipping routes but outside the so-called Polynesian Triangle has kept them almost completely self-sufficient. Taumako has no electric power system, no roads or motorized vehicles, no telephones and few of the "conveniences" or distractions of twentieth-century life. Even plastic items are so rare there as to be considered precious. This means that skills such as lauhala weaving (necessary for manufacturing traditional sails) and kaha (cord)-making (used to make canoe lashing) and wood carving that have been forgotten elsewhere remain part of the islanders' repertoire. b) they have seen how logging has disrupted environments and cultures in other parts of the western Pacific, and have so far chosen to keep their hardwood forests and other plant resources strictly for customary uses of house and canoe construction on Taumako. c) with 450 residents, a majority of whom are under thirty years old, the Taumako community is an ideal size for voyaging canoe production. The population contains critical masses of old people with knowledge and young ones with a desire to learn. Moreover, almost everyone from toddlers to the senior chiefs works on some phase of the project. This prevents individual workers from exhausting themselves physically, and lightens the mental burdens this demanding work imposes. (Indeed, we have been impressed by the people's ability to unite in performance of hard, complex and often dangerous tasks such as hauling canoe logs down from the forest, and to have a rollicking good time too.) However, the very circumstances that have so far enabled Nga Taumako to keep unbroken the millenia-long kaha of ancestral knowledge now conspire to unravel it. The last working tepuRe broke up thirty years ago, and the people who know how to sail one are in their eighties and older. Unless they can train a new generation of sailors and navigators now, their skills, skills that made Polynesians the greatest mariners in history, will die with them. This would be an immeasurable loss not only to Pacific islanders, but to seafarers, anthropologists, and anyone of adventurous spirit. This is where the Vaka Taumako Project and you who support it come in, The project began when Kaveia Kruso, the Paramount Chief, asked for financial help to build and sail a canoe, and for assistance in documenting the endeavor. As part of this process, the Project has provided monies to compensate those who must leave jobs in order to work on the tepuke, brought video and other modern recording technology to Taumako to begin the documentation work, and given eleven young residents basic training in the handling of video cameras. What these students accomplished with very little instruction and rudimentary equipment is dazzling! Far more expressive that anything we can write is what they shot. Even less biased and more professional video folk than we have pronounced the students' work impressive. We would love to have you all sit with us through all 80 hours of what they and we (mostly they) filmed, but since this is not possible, we want to show you a representative sample of their work. Volunteer Larry Williamson is working hard with Mimi to finish a 15-20 minute promotional video incorporating some of the best footage. Contact us is you would like a copy; we expect that they will cost about $US 10 each, including postage. We hope that those who see the tape will understand how important it is to get funding for producing finished videos both for the Taumako archives and for first-world distribution. First of all, this means bringing at least some of the students to an editing studio and training them to use it. There being no suitable facility in Solomon Islands, we propose to transport them to Hawai'i. Once they have edited the existing footage, we need to get them professional quality equipment so that they can record the project'ss next phase, sailing the canoe and training its crews, and edit what they shoot. We also hope to bring a group of ten or twelve craftspeople from Taumako to Hawai'i to teach weaving, carving, navigation, and other skills. This will require about $US 2,500.00 each for airfare alone, and an equal amount for transport, food and accomodation during the three or four weeks they will remain here. Some of this expense we hope to defray by charging a fee to attend workshops and by selling crafts, but most of it will have to be met through donations. NOW FOR THE NEWS: On 21 March, 1998, the Athanase and Shirley Pasant Family Foundation gave Vaka Taumako Project $50,000.00. This generous gift, together with several other cash donations, will enable us to:     a) edit a short informational video incorporating some of the footage shot during the building and launching process.     b) rent and buy video equipment with which to document the tepuke's first voyage     c) maintain the project's support boat, the yacht Gryphon, which serves as a crew transport, canoe escort, and shooting platform     d) pay airfares for the 1998 research team, including a professional video shooter and trainer     e) pay travel costs for a delegation of 3-4 Taumako people to come to Hawai'I for video training and preparation for the cultural exchange mentioned above. THIS MEANS THAT TWO MEMBERS OF THE KAUA'I BASED CREW WILL BE LEAVING FOR THE SOLOMONS ON 16 APRIL. WE ANTICIPATE SPENDING SEVERAL WEEKS PREPARING THE YACHT GRYPHON, NOW IN AVIAVI HARBOUR, FOR SAILING TO TAUMAKO. Another item of interest: on 4 April we received a letter from Mc Pherson Saukere, of the Solomon Islands Postal Department telling us that the Post Office is planning to issue a series of te puke post cards in anticipation of the Melanesian Cultural Festival that will take place in Honiara in July. Moreover, Solomons Post also hopes to design a series of commemorative stamps honoring the Vaka Taumako that will be published in 1999. If any philatelists among you are interested in receiving these items, you can either contact us or write directly to Me Pherson c/o Solomons Post, P. O. Box 1930, Honiara, Solomon Islands. Even if you do not collect stamps, we think you will find these interesting. Like many small nations, the Solomon Islands earns foreign exchange by selling stamps, and some of these are real works of art. SEAHISTORY, the quarterly journal of the National Maritime Historical Society, has published an article on the project in its Spring issue (Vol. 84). We are pleased with the look or the publication-good quality photos and set-up--and think you will be too. Check it out!! (the magazine retails for $US 3.75/copy plus postage. You can order it from the National Maritime Historical Society, P.O. Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566, telephone: 001-800-221 NMHS) HA WAI'I PADDLER, which circulates not only here but in Australia, New Zealand, and the Mainland United States, plans a feature article on the Taumako canoe for its next issue, probably coming out in June. Call Suzy or Kevin Thompson at 800-789-1948 for more information. The Taumako community would eventually like to host those who have supported their labors and who want to learn their seafaring and other skills If you are interested in learning directly from these experts on their own turf, write to us for more information. Nga Taumako will also accept orders for full-size or model canoes, and for craft items such as baskets, mats and paddles. (Our Website ( www.vaka.org/ ) has pictures of some of these) In addition, we have a few limited- edition project t-shirts and others bearing traditional Solomon Island designs for sale. Write, FAX or e-mail us at the address below to place orders.