DI00000219
SAFEGUARDING TRADITIONAL NAVIGATION KNOWLEDGE OF CAROLINIAN PALU TODAY
Ali Haleyalur of Lamotrek Island, Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia, is one of the few remaining people with the knowledge and skills to journey long distances on the open ocean in traditional voyaging canoes without using modern instruments. He and the small community of palu (Carolinian master navigators) alive today learned this wayfinding knowledge through years of apprenticeship with the master navigators throughout the Caroline Islands of Micronesia. Customarily, the knowledge and practices required to navigate over what can be treacherous waters have been passed along to only a few select descendants of ancestral lineages that have protected the valuable practice for thousands of years.
Stefan Krause Applied Cultural Anthropologist, University of South Florida
2016