Stab card – Wikipedia
One Rod card is a navigation instrument that was used in the area of Marshall Islands in micronesia. Before the journey, staffing cards served as a memory support and orientation aid about the wave formations, wind and water currents to be found between the atlles. Stab cards were not used at sea.
A rod card is shown in the lower part of the seal of the Marshall Islands.
A rod card consists of a lattice plant made of coconut blades connected to coconut cords. In the overview maps, small cowrock nuclings are bound to the rods that represent the atolle.
There were three types of staff cards: [first]
- rebbeib : Overview maps that covered large parts of the island chains;
- Meddo : Maps about the location of certain islands and the peculiarities of the lake to be found between them; [2]
- Matang : Abstract cards without reference to specific islands that served the training.
The rod cards were not used at sea, but only on land for the training of navigators and as their memory support. You are not a lake card in the ” western ” Sense. They did not serve to determine the current position, but should show the navigator how to achieve his goal.
With smaller and curved rods, they show the fertilizations around the islands, as bent, distracted and reflected by the islands, cabbage, i. H. Due to the clash of different fertilizers, areas of restless lake, and with longer bars, the direction of travel to the islands marked with the mussels.
The rod card was fully interpreted by the one that she had made or had been instructed in it.
Navigation was reserved in the Marshall Islands, such as generally in Oceania, a few, particularly trained and tested navigators, who kept their knowledge of experienced and learned knowledge of childhood, such as a big secret and only passed on to their students. Jobs to other atlles were therefore undertaken in groups of several ships, which were led by the island king, which was often a navigator himself or could be assisted by a navigator.
While the navigation in the karolines further to the west and the Polynesian navigation was largely determined by the verbally handed down, extensive astronomical knowledge, [3] The navigation between the atolls of the Marshall Islands was primarily based on the knowledge of the constant fertilizers to be found there, which are overlaid by the waves generated by local winds and storms, but are usually not fully covered. The navigators had at least ten expressions to mark the special features of a dune. Their art was to recognize the respective dune or to feel the movements of their ships and to derive conclusions about the course to be taken. This course did not necessarily exist in a straight line between A and B, but was determined by the dune, e.g. B. from the need to always drive on the ridge of two overlapping fertilizers in order to reach the goal directly. Even those who had strayed from the course and at times lost their orientation could usually get back on the right path due to this knowledge and observation of local conditions.
European seafarers were impressed early on by the nautical skills of the Oceanian population. James Cook had the Tahitian Tupaia informed about the Polynesian island world on his first South Sea, and advised on the courses of his further trip. However, nobody tried to explore the basics of this knowledge for a long time. The existence of rod cards was first communicated by a local missionary in 1862 without being able to explain their meaning. Only corvette captain Winkler, who visited the Marshall Islands with the SMS Bussard 1896 and 1897, tried to find out the background of the staff cards and published the first, fundamental report on their content and the underlying navigation.
He first encountered the strict confidentiality rules. He was only able to get more information through the support of the captain Kessler, who had worked in the area for years, dominated the language, was friends with the local tribal leaders and even had a brother. Since he was not allowed to dismiss his brother, he revealed his knowledge. It was only because of this connection that Winkler managed to persuade navigators to further information.
Even then, Winkler warned that only a few people could provide information about it, since the Marshall Insulans have already carried out larger trips in Booten European design according to the compass and the log and the sea cards published by the German Empire, but the old knowledge would no longer be taught and quickly forgotten.
In the course of the 20th century, the trend continued. The locals, craftsmanship boats were made by ” western “Ships displaced and hardly anyone wanted to take the effort of a long traditional nautical training. The knowledge on which the rod card is based on it has therefore largely been lost. Today staffing cards are practically only for sale to tourists.
At the end of the 1950s, Ben Finney wanted to refute the theory, which was widespread at the time as an anthropology student at the University of Hawaiʻi, that Polynesia could not be targeted with the boats used by the local population and their inadequate navigation methods. [4] His activities led to the founding of Polynesian Voyaging Society in 1973, which built the Hōkūleʻa, a replica of traditional Polynesian two-mast sailing catamaranes.
Say Statrut Fuhr 1976 Nur MIT Polynnischen NavigationsStopthod? [5] This was only possible because Mau Piailug, a navigator from the island of Satawal in the Karolinen, was the only of the six navigators that were still alive to provide his knowledge and abilities, contrary to the traditional confidentiality rules for the trip and to instruct more people. This included Nainoa Thompson, who was navigated as his student on some of the other trips to the Hōkūleʻa and was appointed navigator in 2007 together with four other Hawaiians by Mau Piailug on Satawi. David Henry Lewis was also involved in the construction of the ship and on his first trip, a sailor, adventurer, doctor, doctor, researched Polynesian seafaring methods and author of the book, which was first published in 1972 in Rarotonga We, the Navigators , who was able to familiarize the Mau Piailug with the southern starry sky. Since 1976, the Hōkūleʻa has carried out numerous extensive trips in Polynesia and in the further Pacific to the US west coast and to Japan. In 2007 she also visited Satawal and Majuro in the Marshall Islands. Since 2014, the Hōkūleʻa has been on a big journey that is supposed to lead her westwards around the world. [6]
On the Marshall Islands, the remote Rongelap Atoll was the last place where navigators were trained and appointed until 1954 the American hydrogen bomb attempts on the neighboring bikini atoll ended. Corent Joel, who later became a cargo ship captain, was trained there as a boy, but was therefore unable to take his exam. After the last navigator of the Marshall Islands died in 2003, Corent Joel was exceptionally allowed to pass on his knowledge to his younger cousin Alson Kelen. In 1986 he had experienced the return of the Hōkūleʻa from New Zealand as a student in Honolulu. Both dreamed of reviving the sailing in the Marshall Islands in a similar way in order to be able to hand over the knowledge of well navigation, and asked Ben Finney for advice. Since this was about to emeritus, he suggested his doctoral student Joseph Genz to contact Korent Joel. [7]
After a long preparation, Genz managed to raise the funds in order to scientifically document the journey of a traditional sailboat controlled with well navigation by a subsequent engine ship. Korent Joel could not take the journey because of a leg injury and therefore recommended that Kelen, who had now founded a small non -profit school in Majuro, to teach young people from the Marshall Islands in traditional boat construction and sailing. [8] Finally, Alson Kelen drove in 2015 with the interpreting channel built in his school Jitdam Kapeel From Majuro at night and in a stronger wind to the 70 nautical miles (≈ 130 km) away, followed by a motor ship with an anthropologist Genz, John Huth, a Harvard physicist and Gerbrant van Vledder, oceanograph specializing in electromagnetic waves, oceanograph At the Technical University of Delft, the Dutch Center for Wave Science. After the unpeaked arrival on Aur, they were greeted with a great reception, in which the village elder emphasized that the children had never seen a sailing canoe and the islanders wanted to learn their construction again, since they were hardly able to get the petrol for one Drive to Majuro. Alson Kelen also carried out the nightly return to Majuro without any problems and unerring. The later evaluation of the data showed that it had not driven straight on both routes, but despite the wind and local waves, it had followed the bends of the dune between the islands. [7]
- Corvette captain Winkler: About the sea cards used in the Marshal Islands in earlier times, with some notes about the Marshal Insulans in general . In: Marine-Rundschau , Issue 7 to 12 (July to December 1898), pp. 1418–1439 (Digital pp. 620–642) ( Memento im Internet Archive )
- Augustin Creams: Hawaii, East Mikronesia and Samoa; My second South Sea Verein (1897-1899) to study the Atolle and its residents. Verlag von Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1906, pp. 419–427 ( Memento im Internet Archive )
- A. Schück: The rod cards of the Marshallinsulans. Commission publisher by H. O. Persiehl, Hamburg 1902
- Ben Finney: Nautical Cartography and Traditional Navigation in Oceania. In: David Woodward, G. Malcolm Lewis: The History of Cartography; 2.3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies. 1998, S. 443–492 ( Digitized on press.uchicago.edu)
- David Lewis: We, the Navigators – The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific. 2nd edition, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1994, ISBN 0-8248-1582-3 ( Discourse digitized On Google Books)
- Kim Tingley: The Secrets of the Wave Pilots. Article dated March 17, 2016 in The New York Times Magazine
- ↑ Corvette captain Winkler’s detailed article in the Marine Rundschau from 1898 still applies today as the basic description of the staff cards and the navigation technology underlying them; So it is also the basis for this article.
- ↑ The stable card in the Bremen overseas museum is shown and explained in Winkler’s article (map V, turned 90 ° to the left).
- ↑ To the different navigation techniques see Ben Finney: Nautical Cartography and Traditional Navigation in Oceania.
- ↑ Ben Finney, Professor Emeritus ( Memento of the Originals from October 2, 2016 in Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been used automatically and not yet checked. Please check original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. On the website of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Department of Anthropology
- ↑ Star On the website of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
- ↑ Hōkūleʻa, 2016 on the east coast of the USA
- ↑ a b Kim Tingley: The Secrets of the Wave Pilots. Article dated March 17, 2016 in The New York Times Magazine
- ↑ Waan Aelon in Majel – Canoes of The Marshall Islands
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