1932–2010 
EXPLORER MICRONESIA
If you can read the ocean, if you can see the island in your mind, you will never get lost.
—MAU PIAILUG
Mau wanted to cheer when the master of the induction ceremony smeared the medicinal herbs on his forehead and chest. It symbolized that he had the right mind and heart to be a palu, or traditional sea navigator who uses only natural elements to guide his way. To the people of Satawal, a small island in the Pacific Ocean, a palu is even more important than a chief!
When the ceremony master was finished, the people of his island threw garlands around his neck and sprinkled turmeric—a symbol of knowledge—over him. Everyone feasted on fish, turtle, and breadfruit. Mau felt like a hero.
Mau was born in 1932 on the island of Satawal in Micronesia. His real name was Pius Piailug, but he earned the nickname Mau with his boating habits. Maumau means “strong,” and Mau was definitely strong. As far back as he could remember, his Grandfather Raangipi would set him in tide pools in the ocean so Mau could feel the way the water moved around the sand and rocks, surging in toward the land and then rushing back out to sea. Once Mau had grown a bit, Raangipi began taking him on his large canoe out to the deep sea.
But when Mau got seasick, it looked like the fate his grandfather had chosen for him wouldn’t work at all. He felt his stomach flip and his throat burn, and he gripped the handrail as hard as he could to try to keep from throwing up. Raangipi knew just the trick, though. He tied young Mau to the back of the canoe, dragging Mau’s body through the water while ocean spray occasionally splashed his face. Believe it or not, it worked! Mau never got seasick again.
The next step was to start memorizing the stars. Grandpa Raangipi made a classroom on the beach, using pebbles of worn-down coral and laying them out in the sand in the shapes of star constellations. Then he added a palm frond to represent the boat. Mau learned how the stars move from east to west every night and how their locations change throughout the year. He also learned that the waves change when land is nearby, just as the types of birds one sees and how those birds act can mean a boat is nearing an island. If Mau paid close attention to these details, his grandfather instructed him, he would never get lost, and he would always find his destination—no matter how small the island was.
A navigator can learn a lot about his location from the birds and the fish. Sweeter tasting fish mean a river is nearby, which means land is too. Some kinds of birds dive to catch their own fish far out at sea, spending days flying and floating on the water, but other kinds live on land and only go out to sea to hunt for a day at a time. When those birds are near, so is an island.
Mau was just thirteen when his grandfather died, but he continued to study navigation with his father for the next five years. When he was eighteen, his island community honored him as the newest palu, and he could not have been more proud of his work and everything his grandfather had taught him.
Satawal island is only about a mile long and a half mile wide, and the closest island is 140 miles away. Deliveries of food, clothes, and other goods have to be brought by ship. Nowadays, the ship comes once a month, but when Mau was a kid, it only came once every three months. The island people had to know how to deep-sea fish, because it could be a long time before they received another shipment of food.
Mau fished often, but with the navigation skills that his grandfather and father had taught him, he could also boat to Palau, Guam, and other islands if he needed to pick up something that was too important to wait for the next ship. Without the use of any compass or map, Mau always reached his destination.
In 1973, Mau visited his niece and her husband, Mike McCoy, in Hawaii. When Mike invited Mau to attend a meeting of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, he was intrigued and went along. The people at the meeting were trying to determine if ancient seafarers could have traveled some of the great distances that today’s ships travel. They were especially interested in the 2,400-mile trek between Hawaii and Tahiti. Stories had been passed down through the generations of brave and intelligent men who went to sea for a month or more to travel the distance. Modern sailors, however, argued that it would be impossible to accurately navigate to such small islands without the use of a compass. If the navigator was off by even a fraction of a degree, he could miss his destination island completely.
HOKULE'A means “star of Gladness,” referring to Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in the northern hemisphere's sky.
There was only one way to find out who was right: try it. Then Mau realized why Mike had invited him to the meeting. The Polynesian Voyaging Society already had a boat—a double-hulled canoe called Hokule’a built in the Hawaiian traditional style—but they didn’t know anybody who had experience navigating without a compass or a map. It was not just that Mau was perfect for the job, he was the only person at that time who had the know-how to complete the mission. All the Hawaiian palus had grown old and died without younger navigators to take their place.
In the spring of 1976, Mau and a crew of fifteen people set out for Tahiti in the Hokule’a. He took gourds filled with water and root vegetables tied up in leaves. Under the starry sky, he located the star that would lead them to their destination. He paid attention to the way the winds gusted and the colors the seawater reflected onto the clouds above. Every last detail of the environment was a clue to Mau, and he watched them all carefully to make sure they stayed on course. One month later Mau spotted a group of white terns flying overhead. He knew they were close to Mataiva Atoll, the island next to Tahiti, and their journey was almost over.
On the thirty-second day, Tahiti was in sight, and as Mau directed the boat to port, the crew was astonished to see a crowd of 1,600 people cheering for them! The successful completion of the journey meant several things. First, it proved that the stories the elders told of their ancestors crossing the sea from island to island were true. Second, it meant that the ancestors of the native peoples of the South Pacific islands—Micronesia, Polynesia, Hawaii, and others—had intentionally migrated to other islands and spread their culture. Third, it symbolized the lifting of colonial power in Tahiti—European colonists had settled the islands as early as the 1700s, and by the 1900s, many aspects of the natives’ traditions were forbidden. Now the people rejoiced in the modern reenactment of their ancestors’ practices, and interest in traditional navigation surged.
By this time, Mau was in his forties, and he knew it was time to start teaching younger people the skills his grandfather had taught him. He’d tried to apprentice some of the boys on Satawal, but they were not interested in Mau’s ancient practice. Traditionally, Mau’s culture forbade him from sharing the secrets of the palu with people of other cultures, but he knew that rule was outdated. If he waited for the boys of Satawal to show interest, he could be waiting forever! When he witnessed the avid interest displayed by Hawaiians, Tahitians, and others, Mau knew he had found his students.
Over the next thirty years, Mau spent his time teaching and leading more voyages. In 2000 the Smithsonian Institute and the National Museum of Natural History honored Mau’s dedication to traditional navigation and his role in spreading interest and knowledge of this ancient technique. He also received the Robert J. Pfeiffer Medal from the Bishop Museum in 2008. Perhaps the most important honor Mau received was from the Hawaiian people in 2007, though. The Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii presented Mau with a handcrafted boat called Alingano Maisu as a token of their appreciation for Mau’s dedication to passing on his knowledge.
Mau died in 2010. People around the world acknowledged the passing of this incredible man. Following Micronesian tradition, Mau’s family closed the seas in the area for nine days to honor the palu’s death.