LECTURE Series Begins- OVERVIEW

One of the wonderful aspects of traveling with Oceania is that we always get an incredible education from the places we go, people we meet and lectures from people with interesting specialties and expertise that you do not get anywhere else. This voyage is going to be just as fruitful. We began today with our lectures, James, who is joining us on the adventure.

James Grant Peterlin, cultural historian and author of 4 books is from the UK and studied linguistics that brought him to living for 20 years in the South Pacific (Easter Island). He explained how people arrived in the Pacific, the islands of Micronesia, Melanesia (the most culturally diverse of the three) and Polynesia with over 1,000 islands including Hawaii. The people of Taiwan about 4,000 years ago left there and moved East to the Bismark Islands (2,000BC), to Tonga (1,000BC), the Marquesas (700AD) and Hawaii (900AD). To even make it more of a challenge, in their hand carved canoes, they always were traveling against the prevailing winds (unless they were turning back and then they were with the wind). They had no navigation systems except for Celestial Readings at night and Cloud Readings during the day. They brought with them everything they may need to settle an island permanently (animals, crops) but of course had no idea when they would find an island. Many islands they found were very small, had very little resources and the weather conditions were often poor (hurricanes).

Captain James Cook first entered the Pacific Ocean in 1769 to Tahiti and New Zealand. The following year he went to Australia and then in 1778 Hawaii (Kauai) before searching for the Pacific Northwest passage. He helped the people in each place he visited and did not exploit the resources or people as later explorers did. He and his predecessors spread Christianity to the islands, and there are many churches as a result. Sadly, the Islands, also became a place to test nuclear weapons too.

What was made very clear is that “Beyond the Turquoise Lagoons and its Beauty” there is a lot more to these Islands including what they have suffered from and what they have to offer, in their waters and with its people. These people are very proud of their ancestors as well as their connections to all the other islands in Polynesia, even the ones that are thousands of miles away from them that have evolved with different cultures and languages.

“Paradise” living in the South Pacific is not always “paradise” because these Islands are so remote and small and are limited in resources that need to be managed as well as weather to be dealt with (hurricanes from June-November) and unpredictable cyclone that often destroy everything. The challenges include very few high points on some of these Islands to escape the tides and waters and most homes are not built to last these types of storms. One such Island, Kiribati has begun to anticipate what to do if they have to move (they purchased land in Fiji) and have put together detailed plans as how and where to go at the first sign of storms (note the photo of UN Ambassador as to how they can be surprised with high waters). Still we look forward to the next few weeks in Paradise!!!!Leggi altro