Aloha Tatou!

The first thing we saw was a signal light and shadows of canoes gliding towards us over the long starlit swells. Then canoes, songs, greetings, and finally a friendly barrage of freshly cooked wild yam resolved out of the darkness. At 2230 on 27 June we had at last come home...

It has now been two weeks since Meph Wyeth, Nils Thomas, and I arrived here in Taumako for the final months of building the Vaka Taumako voyaging canoes. Yes, I meant to say canoes. The Vaka Taumako Project has almost finished building two completely authentic te puke. They are called Vaka Taumako 1 and Vaka Taumako 2, but their names are the Vaka Taumako (a voyaging canoe for Taumako) and the Matalele (flying eye/beginning) If all goes well, both will be launched on 12 September, 1997. On this day there will be a very big celebration.

The launching celebration promises to be a truly joyous occasion for everyone here and for all the honored guests. Specially chartered ships will bring as many of the people who want to attend as possible. Celebrants will come from neighbor islands of Ndeni (Santa Cruz), Reefs, Tikopia, Anuta, Vanikoro, and Utupua, as well as from Honiara, Guadalcanal, New Zealand, and the U.S.A.. The lucky ones will arrive in time for the full four days of planned activities, including canoe races, a fishing tournament, all-night dancing, singing, and drumming, feasting, a craft fair, and going for brief sea-trials of the new te puke.

There is also a large model of a te puke that is likely to be launched with the others. This one was built by one determined person named William Keizy during the last four years. It is only 7 meters long, but it’s structure and lashings are that of a true te puke. The minimum length of a real te puke is 12 meters, though some old people remember that once there were te puke of as much as 20 meters. The model te puke is named Parangaia (you cannot do that), and is for sale. The Vaka Taumako voyaging canoes are going to be used for the education of the young people in traditional non-instrumental navigation and seafaring and for the good of the community as a whole.

Very soon preliminary sea-trials will be held and the young people will get their first experience of seeing a real te puke sail. After the launching they are talking about the possibility of sailing somewhere interislands this year - probably to Ndendo (Santa Cruz) and Reefs. The sail-training phase of the Vaka Taumako Project is planned to last about a year, though everyone knows that it takes many years of seagoing to learn how to handle many situations.

This sea-training is by far the most difficult and challenging part of the project goals ... and very few of the people here have actually sailed on a te puke before. Only a few more have spent any significant amount of time at sea offshore. The knowledge of the old people like Kaveia, who can still teach them how to handle a te puke in bad weather and how to navigate tradtionally, is irreplaceable and invaluable. We are hoping that the Vaka Taumako Project is just in time for the basics of this knowledge to be transmitted. Kaveia, for one, says he is going to die in not very long, but will live on in his seafaring students and voyaging culture.

Success in the first goal of the Vaka Taumako Project - the building of a te puke - is imminent. Soon there will be the means for the young people to learn the traditional sea-going knowledge, and for us to support and participate in the full documentation of it. We have been working with very limited funds, and we have not yet succeeded in our documentation goals, and especially the video production editing of archival footage as well as the production of broadcast quality footage.

The Vaka Taumako Project video students include five young men and four women. They have shot over fifty hours of interviews with elders and the step by step, community work and rituals of building the te pukes. By launching time they will have doubled that. Several people in the community have volunteered written stories, drawings and paintings that will be wonderful chapters and illustrations for the book or books we will coauthor and edit. Plans are already being made for the buidling of larger te puke and the three other types of sailing canoes that are traditional for Taumako. There is even talk of trying to build a traditional vakalua (double-hulled) sailing canoe. It seems that some people were told that this type was built by Taumakoans prior to the invention of the te puke in the distant past. Information on how it was done is being researched.

A cultural exchange in which several Taumako people will give a workshop on traditional voyaging canoe skills and knowledge in Hawaii is being planned for 1998. This will be the chance of a lifetime for all of us who want to learn traditional cultural knowledge, including Polynesian voyaging canoe building and non-instrument navigation, weaving and natural fiber crafts, health and traditional medicine, dancing, singing and drumming, and special studies in ecology and wildlife. Supporters of the Vaka Taumako Project will be given preference in selection of students for the program in Hawaii, and for any "Custom School" that may be started for outsiders to study with the experts at Taumako.

So that is the way things are now and these are the steps that need to be complete in the Vaka Taumako Project. We now need funds to begin editing the student videotapes for archival products and to plan the startup of broadcast quality taping. Fundraising is already underway. Excellent carved and woven crafts and original Taumako design t-shirts are available for $30. Donations are being received at P.O.B. 2224, Lihu’e, HI 96766, U.S.A. Practical fundraising assistance is welcome.

We will depart Taumako in latter September and return to Hawaii to work from there for about six months before returning to Taumako. Our communications are mostly by SSB radio until October. I am not certain yet whether I will leave Gryphon somewhere safe in Solomon Islands for the cyclone season, or proceed to New Zealand and fly back to Hawaii. In any case I hope to be in Kaua’i by last Oct.

Po Lavoi!

Marianne "Mimi" George, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator, Vaka Taumako Project