Mau Piailug removes each tur and calls out the star path

In June 2002, a shortened version of the pwo ceremony to initiate navigators is performed on Satawal for the first time in over fifty years, as part of celebrations for Kenneth Urumolug's ordination as a Jesuit priest. During the ceremony, Mau Piailug, master navigator, removes the tur one by one as he calls out star paths. It is the women who weave these tur on their looms for special occasions such as this. They use fibres from the bark of the banana tree, a very challenging material to work with. Below the stack of tur is a bowl filled with pounded breadfruit or taro, also prepared by the women.

From Becoming a Navigator, Becoming a Priest © UNESCO 2004. A film by J. Blumberg, R. Hunter-Anderson, R. Apusa, and B. Feinberg.

CD-ROM section: Becoming a Navigator/Role of Women

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Canoe
• Is
• the
• People
• navigating
• navigation
• canoe
• voyaging
• indigenous
• Pacific
• sailing
• navigator
• Mau
• Piailug

[nesianboy]

RIP Mau Piailug. He passed along the traditions of our ancestors.  Thanks.

[MrNightOwl88]

RIP mau

[PBYC24]

man i love this,we should do this kine of thing for all our cultural activities