Ceremony connects indigenous peoples
By Peter Tokofsky Oct 4, 2023 Updated Oct 4, 2023
A bevy of paddleboarders greeted the Hōkūleʻa sea-voyaging canoe as it arrived in Pillar Point Harbor on Sunday afternoon. It was the 41st stop on its four-year, 43,000-mile voyage around the Pacific.
“Gentle tears ran down my face,” said Maria Mesina, who was among those who paddled out. “It brought me back 28 years ago when they first came to San Francisco and we greeted them before they passed under the Golden Gate Bridge.”
The traditional vessel docked near Johnson Pier while a crowd gathered in front of the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club to welcome the crew. As they eagerly awaited the seafarers, Native American elders addressed the people assembled on the beach and lit a sacred fire to connect with the ancestors.
Catalina Gomes, executive director of the Muchia Te’ Indigenous Land Trust in Pacifica, urged the crowd to form an unbroken circle to embrace the guests as they approached the shore in small motorboats.
Capt. Bruce Blankenfeld said that his crew always asks Native peoples for permission to alight when they reach a dock. “It’s our way of honoring them as the first people of the land who have lived here sustainably for generations.”
The Hōkūleʻa was expected to stay in its current port until today when it continues south to Monterey Bay and eventually along the coast of California to South America before heading west toward Polynesia.
A line of visitors gathered early Monday to step aboard and learn about the moored vessel. The crew was ready for a common question and showed guests the buckets they use when nature calls. The tour also offered the opportunity to try out the cozy sleeping compartments inside each of the two hulls and to guide the hoe ama, or steering paddle, through the still water of the harbor. The paddle, the crew explained, distinguishes a double-hulled canoe from a catamaran.
The purpose of the Hōkūleʻa’s voyages is to reaffirm traditional Polynesian values. However, that does not exclude new ways of doing things. According to the website of the Polynesian Voyaging Society that launched the sea journeys, the ancestors “were willing to experiment, to try new things.”
In this spirit, Savannah Mapes, a doctoral candidate at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, is joining the crew from San Francisco to Ventura and will use the latest technology to study phytoplankton samples taken along the way. She said that by employing planktonscopes, native populations that consume shellfish can prevent illnesses caused by toxic blooms.
As the Hōkūleʻa passed Pacifica on Sunday, Mapes spotted whales for the first time in her oceanographic career. When Gomes told her that they were the ancestors coming to greet the visitors, Mapes acknowledged the need to go beyond science to understand the world.
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