The Last Navigator

by Stephen D. Thomas

Nonfiction account of a young American man's sojourn in the South Pacific, on the Micronesian island of Satawal in the Caroline archipelago, studying traditional navigation with Mau Piailug, the last of the palus. It was Piailug who navigated a Polynesian vessel from Hawaii to Tahiti without compass or charts, as documented by a PBS film of the voyage. Thomas learns how to navigate by stars, wind, swell, birds, and memory. It is a story of seafaring, a dying culture, and self-discovery.

Genres: Nonfiction

307 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Gerald Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1987, four years after his research began, Stephen D Thomas published his book The Last Navigator. It made quite a splash by recording some of the life and traditional navigational skills of Mau Piailug a Satawal Islander. Satawal is a remote raised coral island in what is now the Federated States of Micronesia. No more than a speck in a vast surrounding ocean, it lies 320 miles west of Truk and 430 miles south-south west of Guam. Mau Piailug was in his mid-fifties at the time, he was his island’s youngest Palu or fully initiated navigator. In 1970 Piailug had led his crew on a nine-hundred-mile round-trip voyage from Satawal to Saipan in his twenty-seven-foot proa. In 1976 he had become a hero when he guided the Hokule’a from Maui to Tahiti, and in 1980 he had made the voyage a second time – all without the aid of charts, compass nor instruments. The Last Navigator shows a slice of this man’s life and a well-researched look into the culture that spawned such navigational prowess.

Thomas spent about a year on Satawal and accompanied Piailug on several trips to neighboring islands. His documentation of Piailug’s skills is very thorough. The well-written 308-page book contains 54 pages of appendices, a glossary and an index. Thomas explains how Micronesian navigators use the rising and setting positions of fifteen stars or constellations to define thriry-two points around the horizon. He explains how these stars always rise night-after-night at the same place on the eastern horizon and follow the same arc through the sky to their setting position in the west. This circular array of stars called a “sidereal compass” is their primary dead-reckoning tool. They memorize their destinations position relative to the arc of these star risings or settings to align, set and keep their course. That first star rising, followed by three of even four successor stars become part of a predefined itimetau or “seaway.” They memorize and then follow this itimetau course to the destination island. Also recorded in the book are pookof or seamarks (sea creatures arrayed about each island.) A tan shark making lazy movements in the water; Two silent birds; Two birds -- same species one makes noise; One frigate bird; etc. Thomas’s documentation of native terms for stars, itimetau and Pookof and other sailing terms fills his 54 pages of appendices. He included these not so much for Westerners as for future indigenous readers. I noted that the stars he listed were the same ones used by Marshall Islanders, and some of the names Tūṃur (Antares) for instance were the exact same. His work is sure to go down as the authoritative text on Micronesian navigation and his terms researched, discussed and cross-referenced by future generations.

What comparisons can we make between The Last Navigator and my recently published book Man Shark? First, Thomas was more experienced in navigation. Prior to authoring his book, he had already logged 30,000 blue water miles as a professional navigator and skipper, and he sailed with his mentor. Though my cultural experience in the Marshall Islands spanned twenty years and my experience in outrigger canoe handling was much more extensive, I lacked the all-important ocean-going experience he had, and my informants were too old to instruct me in more than the theoretical aspects of sailing by wave patterns. The proas he sailed in were much larger than the ones I sailed. Finally, his was a work of non-fiction and his documentation was accordingly more thorough. Mine is a work of fiction with the primary intention to tell a story, but at the same time to present its historical and cultural background. In this regard there are significant similarities. My main character is a traditional navigator who has mastered the art of using swell patterns as his main navigational tool. Marshall Islanders understood this method to be superior to the sidereal compass method used by their Micronesian brothers because it is not dependent on locating stars only seen at night and only during periods of clear skies. Nevertheless, the process of his apprenticeship, its reliance of memory and internalization is similar. In addition, the pookof he describes are much like the seamarks chanted in Ḷainjin’s famous ikir. Finally, his documentation of a culture in transition in the face of Western influence though not a theme in Man Shark is an ultimate take-away – a glorious history about to wash beneath the surface of the earth.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where do you even start? This book stands alone, and in obvious bias, is a must-read for me. Why, you might ask? Simply put, this book takes someone, who does not really know much about a culture, immerses themselves in a dying tradition that spans time itself, and writes about it. And through this, we see someone try and wrestle with the push of progress versus the stubbornness of the past, and in it, you find the lives of thousands wrapped in the tides, swells, turtles, and stars.

Oh to pass under the illuminated sky, moving on for food, carried by the winds, and truly, being guided by the stars. How this book made me yearn for knowledge completely unknowable, is what sets it apart from others on similar topics. And with that feeling, I seem to have fallen back into the trap that historians and anthropologists are often trapped. Having to cede this indomitable battle that is human life - how we are a continuation of those behind us, their joys and sorrows, and more immensely, the lives they lived, wrapped so tightly with a way of life. To have journeyed with them as they traversed the Pacific, one could melt at the knowledge and lives they have lived, and yet, be unknown in our future. The plight of the historian is this, to be caught in the death of the past under the wheels of the present, only to look back from the future, and wonder what was under those wheel.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steve Thomas bought his first boat at 13, and has been an avid sailor since. He has sailed in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. After losing one of his navigating instruments, he became very interesting in navigating without instruments at all. He did some research and found that in the Carolina Islands in the Pacific, there are some locals that still navigate by the stars, currents and birds.
On the Carolina Islands, navigators or palu were the elite, because they made sure the people of the island had food. On the island of Satawal, there was the navigator Piailug (also known as Mau), who was the most known of the navigators. Steve went to Satawal to seek his permission to apprentice to him. He wanted to learn all there was to learn about the Oceanic way of navigation. This book is the story of that apprenticeship. It is replete with details about navigating by the natural elements, which was interesting but what interested me the most is the details of their culture.

[Amit Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a gem. It offers an insight into almost magical world of micronesian navigators who use celestial navigation techniques to navigate with astonishing accuracy without any of the modern aids available rather relying on nature, intuition, culture and courage.

[Paul Kinzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Last Navigator is primarily a story about the Authors quest to learn the ancient Polynesian navigation techniques from one of the last known "palu", or officially initiated navigators in Micronesia, perhaps even the entire South Pacific. It ends up being more than that, though, as Thomas learns about the culture on Satawal, what's left of the old ways, and what has irrevocably changed through influences of early European contact, German then Japanese occupation, and post WWII American influence. He also learns about himself, and freely discusses his internal struggles.

The navigator Mau Piailug is the main teacher of Thomas, and he clearly is a master of his craft, as well as a leader of his village. While he does take Thomas under his wing, teaching him a great deal, there is a continuing sadness that his skills will be lost when he dies (which he did in 2010).

This is not a happy story, or even one with a happy ending. It is worth reading, though not wholly enjoyable, nor especially well written (thus the 3 star rating), rather reading like a diary. The Author, though, is to be applauded for his immersion in the culture, his honesty, including personal transgressions, and his matter-of-fact reporting on the state of the culture.

The detailed navigational knowledge is compiled in Appendices, and while nearly impossible to understand (only skimmed), will probably be the important legacy of this book.

[Marlyn G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a real person writing this book to real people reading it., not just an author trying to come up with a topic to write about. I loved the book all the way through it. Travel exploration books are a type of book that will pull you into them and this is one of them.

[Mitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a combination of two basic things: it contains an account of the author's time spent on various islands in Micronesia, learning the islanders' ways of navigating the sea and it has pages and pages of the information he learned.

Throughout the book the author and people he interacted with wonder and lament whether these old ways will survive in the face of modern times- and everyone is pretty sure that they won't.

The navigating knowledge is pretty involved and contains a lot of incomprehensible {to us} Satawalese terminology. This makes for difficult and actually quite dull reading. It is incorporated in the text but is further recorded at the end of the book. There are about 70 pages of stuff that would only be of interest to very few specialists.

It required discipline to get me up to the Appendices, at which point I thankfully put the book down. I was thoroughly tired of not only the navigation talk but also of the drunken behaviors of the island men and the moodiness of the main navigator.

I gave this book two stars out of the respect for the work that went into it, not for its entertainment/enlightenment value.

[Jim Gillis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, the same Steve Thomas that was paired with Norm on "This Old House." There is a fair amount of documentation of oral navigation techniques, which some will find dull, I suppose. But the techniques are amazing, and it's really great that it was captured by someone who cared. A civilization spread across the pacific by reading the sea and the stars, and an oral tradition. Steve Thomas gives a glimpse at how this was done, perhaps even by now it is gone.

[Eric Ruark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how I let this one slip through my fingers. Given to me by another skipper at the marina, I devoured Mr. Thomas' adventure learning the navigation techniques of the Oceania people. They had a 6000 year old culture that was making blue water voyages in outrigger canoes while European people were still living in dirt huts. Aloha Magazine said it the best: A finely crafted and compelling book about the fast approaching death of an ancient way of life.

[Jacqueline · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entirely unique book about the culture of a Micronesian island and the navigation system worked out by its inhabitants. Written at a moment in time when the culture and the navigation system were both probably dying. A case study in the evils of colonialism.

[jj · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read read this back in the 80's. I find it fascinating that indigenous sailors could navigate across the Pacific Ocean by reading nature's signs - wave pattern, stars, etc. I hope current generations have preserved this skill.

[Gregory Lamb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago I read "The Navigator" by Morris West and was inspired to learn more about the early explorers of the Pacific. As a result, I picked up Thomas's book, which is much more interesting. I'm looking forward to re-reading "The Last Navigator".