Canoe chronicles

The sail of the fishing canoe is made of woven pandanus leaves and its hull of hardwood from a Fijian forest of prized vesi trees that grow to heights of more than five times the length of the 16-foot vessel.

Hanging from the ceiling of Bishop Museum’s Pacific Hall, the restored fishing canoe provides hints to a past when native mariners sailed thousands of miles across vast expanses, exploring new islands eastward through noninstrument navigation.

The canoe came from Fulaga island in southern Fiji and was refurbished by its owner, John Koon, a master mariner, marine surveyor and rigger. It was the first installation in the newly renovated museum space formerly known as Polynesian Hall, which first opened in 1894. More than 600 artifacts — some never before publicly displayed — will make up the hall’s permanent collection when the exhibit formally opens in September after a multimillion-dollar face-lift.

Bishop Museum officials said its new name, Pacific Hall, reflects horizons beyond Polynesia that will explore the cultural and historical connections between peoples throughout the Pacific, including Asia.

The canoe is an essential symbol of the Pacific migration, and the Fijian fishing boat is one of many of varying scales that will be exhibited.

"It’s a Pacific islanders’ way of looking at their own world," said Noelle Kahanu, director of community affairs for the museum.

Kahanu said the new exhibit focuses on the evolution of Pacific cultures, their migration across the ocean "highway" and their ties to one another.

"The ocean is what connects us. It’s not what divides us," she said.

As an example, Kahanu noted the Hawaiian demigod Maui, who faced trials similar to those Hercules endured. Maui is also known to the Maoris and in Tonga, Samoa and the Santa Cruz islands in the Solomons. Other connections can be found between the mythical dragon described by native tribes of Taiwan and the mo‘o, or lizard demigod, of Samoa and Hawaii.

Based on archaeological digs and DNA analysis, scientists now know the area of southern Fiji, Tonga and Samoa served as a hub of innovation in Pacific voyaging about 2,000 years ago, when double-hulled sailing canoes were launched along with noninstrument navigators who relied on the stars, winds, waves and birds to find distant lands.

Centuries before the invention of the chronometer in the mid-1700s enabled Europeans to navigate in the open ocean, Pacific islanders were sailing beyond sight of land and settling on the islands within the Polynesian triangle, including Aotearoa (New Zealand), Tahiti and Hawaii.

The exhibition also provides insight into daily living and features a variety of canoe models, from a typical Hawaiian fishing vessel to a replica of a double-hulled canoe from New Caledonia used by the bishop of Noumea and made in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Another is a model of a sailing canoe made by renowned Micronesian master navigator Mau Piailug in the late 1960s, years before he served as master way-finder aboard the double-hulled sailing canoe Hokule‘a in its historic 1976 voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti. At a time when some scientists felt Hawaii was settled by chance, the Hokule‘a expedition supported the assertion Pacific islanders were capable of far-ranging ocean voyages using noninstrument navigation.

Much like horses to the Europeans, sailing canoes became the mode of transportation for daily living and survival.

"It was a canoe culture," said Koon, who rigged the Fijian fishing canoe for display.

Koon purchased the canoe from a family in Fulaga some 30 years ago while traveling and collecting native canoes for the Hawaii Maritime Museum. He said the deep, rich soil of some of the islands in Fiji enabled the kind of tree growth that allowed Tongans to build 80-foot-long canoes. He said the Tongans relied on craftsmen from Samoa to build the vessels.

"It was cross-cultural," he said.

The Pacific Hall will showcase artifacts and objects uncovered by Bishop Museum researchers over the last century during their expeditions, and how they used archaeology, linguistics and DNA testing to provide evidence of ancestral ties and shed light on how and when humans settled the Pacific.

The September opening of the hall will mark the completion of renovation of the Hawaiian Hall Complex, the centerpiece of the museum’s 12-acre campus.