Star compass on waka outside Maritime Museum...

This weekend, I was able to take my class to Auckland Maritime Museum for a fieldtrip. I wanted to see if my students would be able to see the Star compass aboard the waka (Maori name for sea vessel).

The double hulled Ocean voyaging Maori waka called 'Haunui' was moored right next to the Maritime Museum.

According to the sign that was alongside the ocean going vessel, its mission is to help in the revitalization of traditional waka culture and knowledge in the Pacific. 

Another one of its aims is to promote the awareness of the oceans, pollution and climate change. The waka has a fascinating history as it was built in Auckland in 2009 and has gone on many Ocean voyages in reviving ancient navigational systems such as learning about the star compass.

Through a video, I was able to share this knowledge with my class about some of the different thinking around traditional Pacific oceanic voyaging that uses star navigating rather than using tools such as sextants etc.

It was fascinating to learn that in the star compass that there are four quadrants and within each of the quadrants house 7 star houses that rise and fall. This was amazing for my class to learn about as they were fairly new concepts that was ancient ancestral knowledge that is being reclaimed today.

It's a part of reclaiming almost lost knowledge but also understanding the breath and depths of ancestral knowledge that too was almost lost. I spoke about changing the narrative in that the early explorers, such as Captain Cook, would have been shocked at just how adept Pacific peoples were with sea crafts when he first saw them around the Pacific Islands.

Suffice to say that it was a very long day after visiting an Maori and Pacific art exhibition at our local Mangere Arts Centre and then we went on a quick visit to the Ihumatao. This place was where protesting/protection and a stand off with police took place pre-COVID against a corporate company building residential housing on land that had once been indigenous owned land but had been confiscated in the around the mid 1800s and then resold to the new pakeha (European) settlers.

It was good to be able to share some of the recent history of the local manawhenua or indigenous peoples who had territorial rights of guardianship over the lands. Despite the colonial government, at the times, corruption and racist policies against the indigenous Maori people. So much has changed since but although we've come a long way, there's still a long way to go...