During its early appearance, this dance that’s full of courtesy and gentleness originated from the palace, performed during festivities at the palace and among the nobles only. In due course this dance was brought out of the palace and performed to the public. During dancing the dancers sway their bodies and move their hands as well as heads parallel to the beating of the hand-held drum, the ‘rebana’. They dance while sitting down on their knees without standing up. The musicians beat the ‘rebana’ while chanting or singing religious songs.

On a limited number of small coral atolls in the Central Caroline Islands, in Yap and Chuuk States in the Federated States of Micronesia, traditional navigation has been still actively practiced. This tradition, however, which has been succeeded by their ancestors for hundreds if not thousands of years, is sadly disappearing due to a lack of interest among the current generations of islanders. This video depicts a pwo initiation rituals for traditional navigators in Yap, Micronesia. A navigation school sponsored by the Yap Traditional Navigation Society was taught by a master navigator Ali Haleyalur from Lamotrek Atoll, who conducted the pwo ceremony. This video shows that the master of ceremonies initiated a navigator while he tied a coconut-leaf bracelet and an amulet to an initiate’s right wrist over lavalava-covered ceremonial bowl and intoned “bracelet for the navigator” chants. Then the master removed all the lavalavas, which were given to him by the initiates’ relatives, from the top of the bowl, and performed “tapping of the pounded breadfruit” chant, getting down on his hands and knees. After he took the initiates’ food from the bowl and put it in baskets, additional baskets of food were filled for 12 schools of navigators. After the pwo ceremony, a new navigator needs to attempt a solo voyage on his own to be considered a full-fledged navigator.