Voyage brings Hokule‘a back to American shores
COURTESY POLYNESIAN VOYAGING SOCIETY
Voyaging canoe Hokulea is back in the United States.
The voyaging canoe Hokule‘a is back in the United States, arriving in Key West, Fla., on Wednesday and enjoying a warm greeting from indigenous tribes at Everglades National Park on Saturday.
Hokule‘a arrived in Florida after two years of sailing around the globe.
The crew was greeted Saturday by the Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples in a sacred ceremony honoring the voyage. Following the ceremony, the Seminole tribe of Florida and the National Park Service hosted a public welcoming ceremony at the Gulf Coast Visitor Center, where the public was invited to meet the crew and learn about the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage.
“We thought it would be most appropriate to have Hokule‘a’s arrival into the U.S. mainland take place where we could honor and pay respect to the area’s native people and to our National Park Service,” said Nainoa Thompson, master navigator and president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, in a release. “This arrival represents two key pillars of our voyage, which are to connect with other indigenous cultures and to discover the efforts of our environmental mission partners such as the National Park Service, which is celebrating its centennial.”
After traveling to Fort Myers today, the crew will cross the Florida Peninsula via the Okeechobee Waterway to the eastern coast of the state, where the crew will honor the late Lacy Veach at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in early April. Veach was a Hawaii-born NASA astronaut who first suggested the idea that Hokule‘a should sail around the world to promote environmental awareness and protection.
Making its way up the East Coast, Hokule‘a will sail to New York City, where it will be a focal point at World Oceans Day events hosted by the United Nations on June 8.
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Since departing Hawaii in May 2014, Hokule‘a has sailed more than 21,500 nautical miles and made stops in 12 countries and 55 ports.
8 responses to “Voyage brings Hokule‘a back to American shores”
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Chinese people and caucasian people are not indigenous to the Hawaiian islands nor are their descendants. Shame on the Seminole for not knowing the difference. Oh, Well, business makes strange bedfellows. The Seminole have a history of welcoming all people fleeing into their territory.
The only problem with Nainoa’s statement is that the Seminole’s have little in common with Hawaiians. Indigenous does not imply the same mind set, experiences, values, beliefs or attitudes. Nor are Hawaiians indigenous to Hawaii. They are a recent immigrant group-several hundred years old-from Tahiti. We are all immigrants to Hawaii. WE just came at different times.
Allie, KSBE is promoting a change in language usage as follows: Hawaiians, the subject of the adverse review of state law in Rice v Cayetano, claim they are not “Indians” as in Indian Law, title 25 USC. Hawaiians claim they are indigenous, meaning everyone descended from the 1778 people are included, which of course, includes Hawaiians. The same group deemed eligible for consideration to attend KSBE schools and receive little drops of money from the charitable trust that runs and owns the schools. The history of the Seminole is very interesting as it is an amalgamation of different Indian tribes and slaves and others retreating to Florida when it was not part of the US of A. they took advantage of the IRA to consolidate their enrollment as Indian tribes. Instead of accommodating legal reality, Nainoa’s group keeps pushing their interpretation of standard law so they can continue to keep native Hawaiians in a position of subjugation, especially when it comes to land use and when it comes to who gets the federal “indigenous” dollar from congress. Also, it’s a way for KSBE to continue to consider any drop of blood as “Hawaiian”. This is going to end bad for everyone due to the arrogance and blindness of the Nainoa faction.
Interesting. And I agree that racialization of everything out here is egged on by attaching dollars to race. Nothing worse than that.
Nainoa himself is Caucasian and, I read, he is a descendant of Sanford Dole, President of the Hawaiian Republic. His family is a rich Hawaiin family that owns much of Niu Valley. So no, he is no victim.Apparently his ancestors helped to overthrow a corrupt and inepot Queen in a domestic coup d’etat. But then neither are Hawaiians.
Hawaiians, who came from Tahiti, invaded the Marquesans who were here first. Then enslaved and butchered them. It is best not to romanticize the indigenous.
By the way, we mandate came from Asia thousands of years ago. Not hundreds of years ago like Hawaiians who are from Tahiti. No, we are all immigrants here. We just came at different times.
OK, as to Marquesans, everyone in the Pacific knew they were notorious cannibals, man eaters and that accounts for why the Tahitians took them out after finding them here. Even today the Fijians tout their own cannibal culture. BTW,you are stuck on pause about this immigration thing. Why not study American Indian trust land policy to add to your already considerable knowledge and eschew all the local brull sheet about who is who etc that permeates reality. The phony canoe voyage is a PR project. The sad thing is Hawaii is so gullible to PR manipulation that no one is able to put two and two together, they ar so brain washed by the royalists using the state as a tool to manipulate and control.
Liking your comments, Mythman.
There are a lot of non-PC questions about this “voyage.”
Good job Hokulea and crew!
You are brave and visionary ambassadors for our islands and for Polynesian culture and wisdom.
I pray you are able to change hearts and minds in America, and return safely home when your mission is accomplished.
Nainoa is as phony as the fiberglass replica canoe, Danno, and phony is not compatible with “visionary”.