VIDEO: Master navigator Mau Piailug remembered in Hawaii
July 26, 2010 | North Kohala
July 26, 2010 – Mahukona, Hawaii
Video by David Corrigan
The late master navigator Mau Piailug was remembered by friends and family on the Big Island of Hawaii on Saturday afternoon.
Relatives of the legendary navigator joined residents of North Kohala and other Hawaiian wayfinders for a special remembrance of “Papa Mau” at the Päpa’i at Mahukona, in view of the Maka O Hule Navigational Heiau.
Renown navigator Milton “Shorty” Bertelmann welcomed those who travelled from afar to be present for the event.
In this video, after music by Bruddah Smitty and Donald Kaulia, Kahu Danny Akaka, Jr led the gathering in an opening pule, and Auntie Pua shared an oli.
Piailug’s family shared stories of the Micronesian wayfinder who called Satawal his home.
Piailug is credited as the man who resurrected the previously lost Hawaiian navigational techniques, and applying them in the maiden voyage of the Hokule’a sailing vessel. The knowledge passed on through Mau also fueled the second Hawaiian cultural renaissance, for which the Big Island’s native peoples expressed eternal gratitude.
The Hokule’a sailing vessel will be making a journey around the state in memory of Papa Mau over the coming weeks.
Thank you David for covering this important event. Piailug made an incredible contribution to the fabric of the sailing traditions of Hawaii and many other island societies of the pacific. Many, many people over the next years, decades and generations will benefit from what he brought back to to life here. The baton has been passed, the responsibility to carry on is now in the hands of those he touched and taught most directly, the current crop of celestial navigaotrs and canoe builders scatterd about Hawaii, Micronesia, and the rest of the Pacific.