Against, across and down the wind: a case for the systematic exploration of the remote Pacific

Abstract

The exploration of the remote Pacific was clearly remarkable, although scholars do not know in much detail how it was done. Consequently, in orthodox opinion early settlers have swung from navigationally competent to incompetent and back again. It is still suggested they made mistakes about their world, but this chapter takes issue with that. A number of propositions arise from the discussion that follows. One is that the coherent pattern of Pacific colonisation implies something about the methods that were used. Another is that return voyaging was always a conventional part of Pacific maritime settlement and had the effect of minimising loss of human life at sea. A third is that navigating in unknown waters was different in key respects than in known ones, but it is only evidence of the latter that has come down to us in ethnography. A fourth suggestion is that useful distinctions can be made between voyaging in the context of exploration, colonisation and post-settlement contact. While obviously there were impulses to colonise, there is no firm suggestion of compulsion. The archaeological evidence, while patchy, suggests that exploration began rapidly and accelerated through time (Irwin 1990), when human populations were smaller than they ever were again. Nowhere was early Lapita settlement on a scale to stand high losses, which implies that voyaging was unforced demographically. However, there is a division of opinion on this point. Sharp (1963:73) thought most voyagers would die, and pondered the question: ‘One can only guess at how many ordeals ended in tragedy during the settlement of Polynesia’ (Sharp 1963:108).

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