Overcoming Māori Voyaging Challenges

Students in Room 8 have been learning about the discoveries and voyages of early Māori explorers. Having developed their knowledge of waka hourua, students began to question how early navigators could cross such vast distances without modern technology. 

Te Aumihi shared her view that nowadays “it’s impossible to get lost because everyone uses their phones or maps in their cars”. This was echoed by Kyan, who stated, “I know that pilots don’t even have to fly their planes much anymore because the plane does it all. It even steers the plane once it has taken off”. 

By using his prior knowledge of Matariki, Phineas shared that he knew Māori used the stars and moon to navigate across New Zealand. Storm remembered that the Matariki star cluster can only be seen during a limited time and shared that navigators might use the Southern Star instead.

Tom argued that the stars can’t always be seen, especially on cloudy nights, so there must be another way for early navigators to find their way. This led the whole class to wonder, “Without stars, how else did early navigators find Aotearoa, New Zealand?”.

The class discussed what other natural signposts might have helped Māori ancestors. Vera shared that they could have used the sun, as “it always rises in the East and sets in the West, so you would just need to check the sun at the right time”. Moana stated that in Finding Nemo, marine animals were able to make journeys by following currents. This made Xanthe suggest that there must be lots of currents that animals and human navigators could have used. Moana’s mentioning of animals prompted Nova to suggest that navigators could have followed fish or sea birds. Rylen stated that he knew some birds, like the albatross, can fly from land to find food and then fly back to feed their chicks. 

Having identified that the sun, moon, stars, currents, swells, and animals could help early navigators, a question was given to students: What challenge would each of these wayfinding navigation techniques have? And how could Māori navigators overcome these?

Once students were split into pairs, they began to dissect each navigational approach, focusing specifically on challenges and potential solutions.

Charlotte and Joshua began with the problem that sailors might face with storms and big swells. Joshua shared that there can be “really big waves in the Pacific Ocean because it is so big”. Charlotte stated that navigators could overcome this if they “lower the sail or change the way the waka is facing so they’re not crashing into the waves”. Joshua commented, “But they might then go in the wrong direction,”. Charlotte responded, “But that’s better than their waka falling over and then they’ll have to swim home!”.

Pippa and Nova were also discussing the problem of storms. Having also agreed that Māori navigators could lower their sails. Pippa asked, “Couldn’t they see the storm clouds coming towards them, so they could just sail away from them?”. Nova agreed and commented, “They’d even be able to sail around them as they’d be able to see the grey clouds to stay away from and the normal ones to sail towards”.

Having solved the problem of Pacific Ocean storms, Lenny and Cooper began to discuss how Māori explorers would navigate when clouds were blocking the sun, moon and stars. Cooper stated, “I don’t think they will be in a big rush as they’ll have enough food and water, so if it was me, I would lower the sails and take a rest”. Lenny argued, “they might run out of water really quickly, especially if it hasn’t rained, so they might be in a rush”. By prompting them further to overcome this problem, Cooper stated, “The clouds don’t just sit still in the sky, they move, so eventually you’ll be able to see the moon shining bright between stars. So then you’ll be able to find a way and just keep checking the moon when you can”.

Connor and Te Aumihi were also discussing the problem of dark clouds. Te Aumihi said, “Even when you can’t use the stars and moon, you can still use animals to help you. They normally hunt and return to land before it gets dark, so you can just follow them”. Connor responded by stating, “They can also keep using the swells. They used their feet to feel the swells, so they don’t need to see them”.

Rylen and Hazel had come to a similar conclusion to Te Aumihi. Rylen stated, “They can always just follow the birds. They are always going out to sea to find fish, so you can find them all the time and just follow them back to land”. Hazel agreed and shared, “If it is starting to get dark, you might see fish going back towards land and to reefs to get away from sharks”. When questioned how he would be able to see the fish, Hazel responded, “I could just follow the shark fins as they’re chasing the fish”.

Moving on to solve additional challenges, Tom and Brodie were discussing the problem that Māori navigators might face with boredom. Brodie stated, “I get so bored in the car when we go camping. They must be really bored when all they can see is the ocean”. This prompted Tom to state, “When we go away, we sing songs and tell funny stories”. Brodie commented, “As they were Māori, they probably sang the waitā that we sing at school”. Tom also commented, “They probably told stories about the journeys their ancestors took and the old stories like the Fish of Maui”. 

Across the classroom, similar arguments were being formed and explanations given to address the many problems that were faced by early Māori explorers.