[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 108 (Wednesday, July 21, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H5894]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              MAU PIAILUG

  (Mr. SABLAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SABLAN. Mr. Speaker, before there was GPS, before there were 
compasses, the people of the Pacific navigated over thousands of miles 
of open ocean, including Hawaii and Samoa and Tahiti and New Zealand 
and hundreds of tiny islands and atolls in between. Yet in our 
lifetime, this ancient knowledge of navigation was all but lost until 
one man on the island of Satawal, who may have been the sole remaining 
practitioner, made it his mission to spread the Pacific art of 
navigation once again from island to island and keep it alive.
  Mau Piailug succeeded in preserving thousands of years of accumulated 
understanding of how to sail using the stars and the rhythm, taste, and 
temperature of the oceans. He trained others to distinguish each region 
of the sea by the life it harbors, when to the untrained eye these 
ocean reaches seem uniform, even empty of life. He reawakened pride in 
the unimaginable competence and courage of our ancestors, who over the 
course of so many generations populated the Pacific.
  Mau Piailug died on his home island of Satawal yesterday. As a fellow 
Pacific Islander, I thank him for all he gave us. I wish him well on 
his final journey.
  I rise to pay special tribute to the life of a remarkable man, a hero 
of the Micronesian Islands and the entire Pacific, Master Navigator 
Pius Mau Piailug.
  Piailug was the best-known modern practitioner of the ancient art of 
navigating over thousands of miles of ocean without the need for maps 
or instruments. He died on July 18.
  Pius Mau Piailug began life on the atoll island of Satawal, one of 
the outer islands of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia. His 
grandfather first began training Mau in the traditional arts of 
navigation. He fashioned his grandson a star chart of palm and coral 
and sat with him to watch the stars traverse the sky each night, 
learning their paths and the times they rose and fell on the horizon. 
As he grew, Mau was allowed to spend time in the canoe house with other 
elders, who taught him about the many signs needed to sail the sea. He 
learned to read the rhythm and temperature of the waves, to understand 
the significance of the flight of birds, to know where he was in the 
ocean by the kinds of sea life to be found there. And when he had 
learned all that he could from the canoe house elders, Mau was sent to 
a master navigator, a ``Paliuw,'' who lived on a nearby island, to 
complete his education. Finally, at the age of 18, Mau was christened a 
master navigator in the Weriyeng School of Navigation during a sacred 
ceremony called ``Pwo.''
  Throughout his adult life, Mau Piailug honed his mastery of the ocean 
navigation and knowledge of the seas, sailing his canoe and living his 
life in the traditional way. He could see, though, that life in Satawal 
and across Micronesia was changing. Children were relying more on books 
and schools for their education rather than learning from their elders 
as they always had. Children were no longer interested in learning 
about navigation. The Pwo ceremony was no longer celebrated, because no 
new navigators were being trained. On islands across the Pacific, the 
old navigators were dying without passing on their knowledge. Piailug 
started to fear that that this would also happen on his home of 
Satawal.
  It happened, however, that a group of men in Hawaii had also sensed 
that that ancient arts of the sea were in danger. So, they determined 
to build a traditional double-hulled, ocean-going canoe and retrace the 
voyages of their ancestors. For that, they would need a navigator, 
however; and no one in Hawai'i still had this skill. Thus, it was that 
Mau Piailug became master navigator of Hokule'a on its maiden voyage 
from Hawai'i to Tahiti. And that thirty-three day sail, proving that 
the ancient technologies of ship craft and navigation persisted, 
ignited a fervor for the old ways and a new pride in the Micronesian 
and Polynesian cultures that has revitalized voyaging, canoe building, 
and non-instrument navigation throughout the Pacific.
  The voyage of Hokule'a was just a beginning. In the years that 
followed, Mau began to pass on his knowledge of navigation. He took 
numerous others on voyages throughout the Pacific. He sailed from the 
Hawaiian Islands to the Northern Mariana Islands, a feat no one known 
had ever before been known to accomplish. He made frequent trips 
sailing from Yap to the shores of Tanapag Village on the island of 
Saipan, where he had relatives.
  Piailug felt compelled to pass on what he had received, and he gave 
freely the gift of his ancestors. He taught all who would listen, and 
peoples all over the Pacific began building canoes and rediscovering 
their past. With much determination and patience, Mau Piailug created a 
new generation of navigators.
  Now Pius Mau Piailug has embarked on his last voyage.
  I call upon my colleagues to join me in honoring this master of 
navigation, this mentor of navigators.

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