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THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1994

style that takes for granted its own three essays are each distinct in topic conclusions, and is thus to some extent and increasingly wide in focus. The an exercise in self-fulfilment, it is in first two serve as case studies of the fact a powerful statement ofthe Nau­ Polynesian expansion into the Pacific ruan case for compensation. The essen­ and the later European colonization of tial issue is the extent to which "the the islands. The third is a "thought duty of care" extends to nations as well exercise" that speculates about as individuals, and whether an admin­ expansion into the cosmos. That they istering nation (in many senses a colo­ mingle rather uneasily within a single nial power) may profit in any way from volume is less significant than their the fiduciary relationship. Weeraman­ usefulness as separate pieces. try holds that, by virtue oftheir status, The first essay, "Voyaging into trust territories have a fundamentally 's Past," describes recent different relationship with their admin­ expeditions ofthe Hokule'a, the recon­ istering governments than do other structed Polynesian double-hull sailing dependencies. It now remains to be vessel now completing its second seen whether the International Court decade ofvoyaging. A sizable literature ofJustice agrees. on Pacific indigenous navigation has accumulated in recent years, and Fin­ BARRIE MACDONALD ney has been perhaps its foremost con­ tributor. In the current essay, Finney

~. reviews the Hokule'a project and dis­ * * cusses findings from three recent voy­ From Sea to Space, by Ben Finney. ages of the vessel: the eastward cross­ Macmillan Brown Lectures. Palmer­ ing from Samoa to Tahiti, the longer ston North, : Massey southwest passage from Rarotonga to University (distributed in Australia and Aotearoa, and the most recent round­ New Zealand by Dunmore Press, dis­ trip voyage between Hawai'i and Tahiti tributed elsewhere by University of (1985-1987). Readers ofearlier descrip­ Hawai'i Press), 1992. ISBN 0-9°8665• tions ofthe project that concentrated 59-8,128 pp, maps, notes, biblio­ on problems ofvessel design and con­ graphies. Paper, US$IO.95. struction and challenges to noninstru­ ment navigation, will note that the The Pacific was the last major region of emphasis here shifts to wind and the planet to be settled by , and weather systems. Having demonstrated the last to be colonized by Europe and the seaworthiness of a sailing vessel drawn into a world system ofglobal modeled on ancestral Polynesian economy and culture. The three chap­ design, and the truStworthiness of ters in this slim publication situate indigenous navigational techniques three great trajectories ofthe coloniz­ and principles, the Hokule'a voyages ing and expansionary experience of the are now being used to suggest that human species within a Pacific perspec­ indigenous meteorological knowledge tive. Originally presented as the Mac­ in the Pacific may have been far more millan Brown Memorial Lectures at extensive and systematized than out­ Massey University in 1989, Finney's side observers previously appreciated. BOOK REVIEWS 257

Applying this knowledge, voyagers such as the ancestors ofthe Polyne­ evidently recognized and made use sians, have been particularly expansive of seasonal shifts in wind direction in outlook. He posits that the distribu­ and periodic reversals ofweather tion ofPacific islands extending like systems as occur under El Nino con­ stepping-stones from Southeast Asia ditions. was "ideal for promoting island coloni­ The Hokule'a project was at the zation," and he suggests that 's outset primarily a technological experi­ heavenly neighbors-the moon, plan­ ment devised to test Polynesian (and ets, asteroids, and comets-afford an Micronesian) seafaring equipment and analogous platform for expansion into navigational science. Early on, how­ the cosmos. ever, the project acquired symbolic The second half of this short essay significance as a manifestation ofPoly­ moves at warp speed through various nesian identity and cultural renais­ ideas envisioned by space enthusiasts: sance. Finney touches on this phenom­ from "terraforming" alien atmospheres enon ofthe mythic appeal ofthe in order to make them breathable by Hokule'a as it traverses ancient Polyne­ humans, and constructing artificial sian routes, but clearly his focus is on habitats in interplanetary space, to a the Hokule'a as a scientific experiment solar-orbiting microwave power sta­ and not as a cultural apotheosis. This tion that beams its energy at a space­ is unfortunate, because a closer prob­ ship propelled by a giant microwave ing ofthe ways in which the vessel has sail. Although these sci-fi scenarios been valorized and symbolized within tantalize, Finney is more concerned the arena of cultural politics in Polyne­ with speculating about the evolving sia might illuminate a question Finney political and economic "solar-system poses in his introduction: What were system" and the changes in human the motives for Polynesian voyaging consciousness and culture that will and expansion? accompany the colonization of the Finney's third essay, "One Species cosmos. The rational optimism im­ or a Million?" takes the problem of plicit in this essay-the assumptions human expansion to a quite different that "Cosmopolynesians" will colonize plane-the of space and the heavens and that the human species the cosmos. Although Finney's intellec­ is destined to evolve for another five tual odyssey from sea to space was million years-is modulated by an prompted in part by questions about occasional Cassandran note; perhaps the motivation for human expansion, nuclear holocaust, economic col­ this essay is concerned more with etho­ lapse, or natural disaster will intervene logy and evolutionary biology than first. psychology. Finney locates the motiva­ In this regard Finney's second essay, tion for exploration in the human "Nuclear Hostages," is instructive. In neotenous tendency to retain a juvenile thirty short pages he traces early Euro­ primate characteristic-exploratory pean contact with Tahiti, missioniza­ behavior-and turn it into an adult tion at the turn ofthe nineteenth cen­ profession. Having set out this general tury and the subsequent establishment , Finney asks why some peoples, ofa theocratic state, French annexa- MaMi.MWN •

THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1994

tion, the development of a rural peas­ the years he was a prominent Cook ant way oflife based on cash-cropping Islands politician, six ofthem as oppo­ ofcopra and other commodities, and sition leader, nine as prime minister. the economic boom and ensuing afflu­ Island Boy is his second volume of ence and inequality brought about by memoirs and brings up to date his life France's massive funding ofits nuclear­ since 1952, when he sailed his forty­ testing program in those islands. This five-foot schooner from New Zealand saga of colonialization is a familiar to the east coast of the one, in the Pacific and elsewhere with his New Zealand wife and their throughout the world. In this particu­ two young children to study at the lar case the story includes both the Harvard School ofPublic Health. The economic uncertainty and the ominous account ofhis boyhood in the islands, medical and ecological risk of "living his 1940 marriage to Lydia in Dunedin, off the bomb." where he was at medical school, and Massey University and the author their life in the Cooks from 1945, when are to be commended for bringing out the young Davis was the government these lectures in an inexpensive and medical officer, was told in Doctor to well-produced publication (though the islands, in print for many years marred by dozens oftypographical after its publication in 1955. errors). These informative, lucid, and Island Boy lacks the stylish writing engaging essays will be ofinterest to a and evocative appeal that made Doctor broad audience of both Pacific scholars to the Islands a bestseller. This presum­ and more general readers. ably is because Lydia, who Davis

DONALD H. RUBINSTEIN acknowledges did the donkey work on University ofGuam the first book in association with a professional writer, had no part in this

~. one, their marriage having broken up * in the United States in 1967. In compar­ Island Boy: An Autobiography, by ison, Island Boy reads more often like a Tom Davis, Pa Tuterangi Ariki. Suva: detailed inventory ofthe author's Institute ofPacific Studies, University career. ofthe South Pacific; Christchurch: The text is divided into three equal Macmillan Brown Centte for Pacific parts. The first, "Home Ground," Studies, University of Canterbury; revisits his boyhood and early years : Centre for Pacific Studies, described in Doctor to the Islands, but University ofAuckland, 1992. ISBN includes useful new chapters on Poly­ 982-02-0071-7,349 pp, maps, illus­ nesians and and trations, bibliography, index. Cloth, sailing canoes, compounded from the US$25, NZ$45, F$18; paper, us$18, literature and his own experiences and NZ$35, F$15· opinions. The account ofhow, as the only qualified doctor in the Cooks, he Sir Tom Davis, doctor, space scientist, faced the challenges of ignorance, academic, sailor, sportsman, author, superstition, and colonial bureaucrats artist, is best known in the Pacific for who held a low opinion ofhis fellow