Stars and Sea Swells - On the Stick Charts of the Marshall Islands Stars and Sea Swells - On the Stick Charts of the Marshall Islands By Nicolas Py-Corigliano The peoples of Oceania are the descendants of the most skilled navigators in the history of mankind. Their ancestors, first the Austronesians and then the ancestral Polynesians, found their way across the largest ocean on earth, the Pacific. They accomplished this thanks to an extensive knowledge of seafaring and all the nautical skills they had acquired and developed since the Austronesians embarked on their first voyages from the south coast of China and Taiwan. There was a break with the techniques of traditional navigation during the colonial period, but since the 1970s, the peoples of Oceania have sought to regain these skills and to revive past traditions. Doing so has renewed their pride in their history and culture. Of course, exceptional boats, built with a great skill and expertise, were the main tools they used to make their explorations possible. In this essay I will however focus on two other astonishing devices they had at their disposal to ensure the success of their journeys: the star compass and stick charts. Despite the colonization that changed the way of life in Oceania profoundly, the navigational skills were never completely forgotten. In Micronesia, they survived and were taught continuously by expert mariners who went on to contribute to reviving traditional navigation in other parts of Oceania as well, especially in Polynesia. The older mariners used, and still use, star compasses and stick charts to teach their younger apprentices. The star compass is the method used by ancient Oceanic peoples to cross the ocean, to find new and uninhabited islands, and of course, after they had settled on them, to maintain contact with the places they had come from. The method is simple: each island is associated with a shining star which points above the island at its zenith. Seafarers observed the movements of these zenithal stars to determine the latitude to follow. For the longitude, mariners observed the rising and the setting of lower stars which followed the same path on the horizon. In this projection the central point was the canoe. Indeed, the sky is moving during the night, so the perception would have been that the only ''immobile'' point was the mariner on his canoe. Zenithal stars pass over Fiji sky map from David Lewis’ book We the Navigators (public domain, CC BY-NC-SA) Of course, during the day, the sun, the winds and other clues like birds, seaweed, clouds or smoke from villages, landmarks, and any number of things or phenomena, were used to find the right way. All of this astronomical and environmental information was maintained by oral chants and traditions and transmitted from the elders of a group to its younger members. While the knowledge handed down from one generation to the next in this way was vitally important, no single Oceanic seafarer knew all the islands of the Pacific. Generally, the most experienced ones knew a vast area that corresponded to the islands with which their communities had connections. Micronesian star compass in Satawalese, after the teachings of Mau Piailug, famous expert mariner (from Wikisource, CC BY-NC-SA ) The Marshall Islands Archipelago was the place of origin for so-called stick charts, very unusual traditional nautical tools that remain highly sought after and prized by Oceanic art collectors. The Marshall Islands have the geological particularity of being made up of two parallel lines of atolls: the Ralik chain (Ralik means “sunset”) and the Ratak chain (Ratak means “sunrise”). Because of this, the Marshallese were able to develop an ingenious method of navigation that relied on the physical and natural phenomenon of ocean swell reflection and refraction. The swell moves in the same direction as the prevailing trade wind. However, this direction changes when the swell hits an island. On the one hand, the swell is refracted, creating concentric circles around the island, and on the other, it is reflected, reversing the direction of the swell in a strong counter-movement which extends beyond the island in front of it, and out in diagonal paths from it. These reverse movements are observable on the crests of waves. Map of the Marshall Islands (from Wikisource, CC BY-NC-SA) According to the Marshallese, there are four swells that are present in their archipelago year-round: the rilib, the kaelib, the bungdockerik and the bundockerik. The rilib comes from the east (northeast) and is the strongest and the most vital to the stick chart system. The kaelib is the weakest and is very difficult to detect. The bungdockerik comes from the southwest and is felt mostly on the southern islands while the bundockerik is felt mostly on the northern ones. The swell that moves in the opposite direction of the dominant one is called jur in okme, and the diagonal swells are called kaaj in roep. Both of them are created by reflection. The refracted swell is called nit in kot and moves along the island. These clues make it possible to identify paths along which to sail which are called okar or dilep. All of these indicators are present on these navigational aids that the Marshallese use and that are referred to as stick charts. A stick chart is made up of an assemblage of segments of coconut frond midribs or rattan connected to each other with sennit and with cowrie shells at specific places. It is not a map with a scale and the types of details one would expect in the Western sense. It more closely resembles a subway diagram or some other kind of concise guidance system. Stick charts identify refractions and reflections of swells and their movements around islands, through a codified diagram that is present on the stick chart itself and rendered with curved lines, chevrons and the cowries that represent the islands. Ever since Western contacts began, and even more so after the Second World War, stick charts have assumed a standard shape, but the oldest charts are unique because they were created by each expert seafarer. There are three types of stick charts: matang (often called wapepe, a term that is sometimes used as a generic name for stick charts), med(d)o (sometimes called meto) and rebbelib. None of these charts are used on board the canoes during voyages; a competent navigator has his stick charts committed to memory. The matang stick chart is a teaching device. The younger mariners learn the system by using it. The map often has the shape of the German iron cross - which is ironic when one recalls that Germany was the second colonial power to control the Marshall Islands. Matang sticks do not represent any island or specific area of the Marshall Archipelago. They are only abstract tools that depict the movements of swells, winds, waves and all their interactions around an island. Examples of matang from the British Museum, Oc1987, 03.59 & Oc1941,01.4 (CC BY-NC-SA) Example of a matang from the Berlin Museum VI 24 667 (Credit: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum / Peter Jacob CC BY-NC-SA) Unlike the matang, the meddo and rebbelib are true maps in the sense that they represent real islands or atolls and the movements of swells around each of them. The meddo are smaller than the rebbelib. Meddo are stick charts of precise islands or groups of islands, while the rebbelib cover larger areas, sometimes even representing one of the chains of the Marshall Islands in its entirety. The rebbelib are actually so accurate that they match up with maps created using modern Western techniques! A meddo from the Berlin Museum, VI 15282 (Credit: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum / Peter Jacob CC BY-NC-SA) A meddo from the Peabody Museum 00-8-70/55584; it represents the islands of Jaluit (Top), Kili (center) and Mili (center, right) (Credit: Peabody Museum CC BY-NC-SA) A rebbelib from the Übersee Museum in Bremen (from Wikisource, CC BY-NC-SA ) A rebbelib which depicts the Marshall Islands in their entirety, side by side with a real map of the archipelago, Museum Fünf Kontinente, Munich The use of the Marshall Islands stick charts declined due to the nuclear test programs launched by the US Army in the area between 1946 and 1958, especially on Rongelap Atoll. However, in the 1980s, traditional Marshallese navigation underwent a revival during which stick charts were redesigned and re-used, and a new generation of young seafarers was trained. At the same time, connoisseurs, scholars and mariners were focusing their attention on improving their understanding of traditional navigation in Oceania. Stick charts are among the best-known items from the Marshall Islands, along with model canoes and large sculpted mother-of-pearl fishhooks with thick, bulky shanks.
