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Obituary;Mau Piailug
In the spring of 1976 Mau Piailug offered to sail a boat from Hawaii to Tahiti. The expedition, covering 2,500 miles, was organised by the Polynesian Voyaging Society to see if ancient seafarers could have gone that way, through open ocean. The boat was beautiful, a double-hulled canoe named Hokule'a, or “Star of Gladness” (Arcturus to Western science). But there was no one to captain her. At that time, Mau was the only man who knew the ancient Polynesian art of sailing by the stars, the feel of the wind and the look of the sea. So he stepped forward.
1976年春天，Mau Piailug駕著一只小船從夏威夷駛到塔希提，這次遠足航程2500海里，是由玻利尼西亞航海團體組織的，目的是為了看看遠古的航海員能不能進入浩渺大洋，能走得多遠，他們為此特別制造了一只名叫“哈古樂”（即歡樂之星，或是天文學上說的大角星)的雙殼小船。可是為哈古樂找船長卻并不容易，當時世界上只有Mau Piailug懂得古老的玻利尼西航海術,即通過感受星星、風和海的顏色狀態來航行。所以他承擔了這個任務，駕著哈古樂，從夏威夷航海，到達了塔希提。
As a Micronesian he did not know the waters or the winds round Tahiti, far south-east. But he had an image of Tahiti in his head. He knew that if he aimed for that image, he would not get lost. And he never did. More than 2,000 miles out, a flock of small white terns skimmed past the Hokule'a heading for the still invisible Mataiva Atoll, next to Tahiti. Mau knew then that the voyage was almost over.
Mau Piailug生長在西太平洋密克羅尼西亞，并不知道南太平洋塔希提島的風是什么樣子的，可是他在腦子里有個塔希提的映像，他知道只要朝著那個映像走，就不會迷路。航行了兩千多海里了，他看到一群白色的小燕鷗飛快地飛過哈古爾，他知道它們是要飛向塔希提邊上的馬太瓦環礁，以此判斷出他們快到達目的地了。
On that month-long trip he carried no compass, sextant or charts. He was not against modern instruments on principle. A compass could occasionally be useful in daylight; and, at least in old age, he wore a chunky watch. But Mau did not operate on latitude, longitude, angles, or mathematical calculations of any kind. He walked, and sailed, under an arching web of stars moving slowly east to west from their rising to their setting points, and knew them so well—more than 100 of them by name, and their associated stars by colour, light and habit—that he seemed to hold a whole cosmos in his head, with himself, determined, stocky and unassuming, at the nub of the celestial action.
在那一個月的航行里，他沒有帶指南針，沒有六分儀，也沒有任何圖紙，他并不是個反對使用現代儀器的人，白天里指南針偶爾也能用下，年紀大的時候他也開始戴個笨笨的手表。不過，他不使用經度、緯度、角度等，也不做任何數學計算，行走，或航海，就在蒼穹之下，頭頂是東升西落慢慢移動的星星，他熟悉星星，能說出100多個星星的名字，每個顆星的位置、顏色、亮度，他的腦子里似乎裝著整個宇宙，那個宇宙，與性格堅定、身材健壯結實、為人謙遜的他，就是這次航行的核心。
Sharing breadfruit
Setting out on an ocean voyage, with water in gourds and pounded tubers tied up in leaves, he would point his canoe into the right slant of wind, and then along a path between a rising star and an opposite, setting one. With his departure star astern and his destination star ahead, he could keep to his course. By day he was guided by the rising and setting sun but also by the ocean herself, the mother of life. He could read how far he was from shore, and its direction, by the feel of the swell against the hull. He could detect shallower water by colour, and see the light of invisible lagoons reflected in the undersides of clouds. Sweeter-tasting fish meant rivers in the offing; groups of birds, homing in the evening, showed him where land lay.
出海時，葫蘆里裝著飲水，葉子上系著干糧，他讓小船和風形成一個固定的角度，沿著一顆升起的星星，和對面一顆正落下的星星形成的直線航行，白天有時候靠太陽指方向，有時候靠大海這生命的母親指方向，通過船身感受水流，判斷海岸的方向和距離，通過海水的顏色判斷水深，通過天上云底的反光判斷遠方的礁湖。如果魚的味道比平常甜點，就意味著淡水河離這里不遠，如果傍晚有鳥群回家，就指示陸地的方向。
He began to learn all this as a baby, when his grandfather, himself a master navigator, held his tiny body in tidal pools to teach him how waves and wind blew differently from place to place. Later came intensive memorising of the star-compass, a circle of coral pebbles, each pebble a star, laid out in the sand round a palm-frond boat. This was not dilettantism, but essential study; on tiny Satawal Atoll, where he spent his life, deep-sea fishing out in the Pacific was necessary to survive.
Mau Piailug的祖父是一名航海家，從小，祖父把小小的他綁在潮汐湖里，讓他體會不同的地方拍打著的浪和風，體會各地風浪的區別。等他長大一點，就讓他記星圖，用一圈珊瑚石，每個代表一顆星星，畫一只棕櫚葉形狀的船，船邊上擺著這些珊瑚石，這些并不是玩玩，而是基本的學習。在他生活的薩它瓦爾礁島上，他們靠到太平洋捕深海魚維生。
Nonetheless, the old ways were changing fast. After Mau, at 18, was made a palu or initiated navigator, hung with garlands and showered with yellow turmeric to show the knowledge he had gained, no other Pacific islander was initiated for 39 years. Alone, he went out in his boat with the proper incantations to the spirits of the ocean, with proper “magical protection” against the evil octopus that lurked in the waters between Pafang and Chuuk, and with the wisdom never to get lost—or only once, when he was wrecked by a typhoon and spent seven months, with his crew, waiting to be rescued from an uninhabited island.
然而，舊日的方式在飛快地變化，在他18歲的時候，他成了一名“巴魯”（世傳航海家），戴著花環，姜黃沐身以表示他學到的知識，那時候，他是39年以來第一名巴魯。他獨自航行，帶著合適的海神祝語，帶著合適的神秘保護，讓小船免遭潛伏在pafang到楚克之間的毒章魚陷害。因為他的智慧，他從沒在海上迷過路，只有一次遇到臺風，和他的隊友一起被困在無人的島上，等了七個月，才等到救援。
As a palu, however, he could not allow his skills to die with him. He was duty-bound to pass them on. Hence his agreement to captain the Hokule'a. That voyage, which proved that the migration of peoples from the south and west to Hawaii was not accident, but probably a deliberate act of superlative sea- and starcraft, transformed the self-image of Hawaiians; and it changed Mau's life. Suddenly, he was in demand as a teacher. Patiently, pointer in hand, one leg tucked under him, he would explain the star compass to new would-be navigators; but he allowed them to write it down. He knew they could never keep it all in their heads, as he had.
巴魯不能讓自己的航海技能身后無傳，他有責任將技能傳給他人，所以才答應做哈古樂的船長。哈古樂那次航行，證明人類從南部和西部向夏威夷遷徙并不是一次偶然，很可能是一場做了充分準備、使用了最高深的航海知識和占星知識的行為。哈古樂此行，改變了夏威夷人的形象，也改變了Mau的人生，使他突然就成了一名老師，手執教鞭，單腳盤地，對這些可能成為航海家的新學生解釋星盤，他允許學生做筆記，因為他們不可能全都像他一樣能夠將星盤牢記在心。
當然這些東西有很多是嚴肅的秘密，當他說到靈魂的時候，微笑的臉頓時冷靜下來，甚至顯得很神圣，他只教很少的學生“和大海交談”，“和光線交流”，并且在教學生這些秘密的時候，他打破了密克羅尼西亞知識不外傳的規矩，因為在他看來，玻利尼西亞人和密克羅尼西亞人是一家人，聯結著他們是的他們千百年來駕小舟穿行過無數次的廣闊海洋。
In 2007 the people of Hawaii gave him a present of a double-hulled canoe, the Alingano Maisu. Maisu means “ripe breadfruit blown from a tree in a storm”, which anyone may eat. The breadfruit was Mau's favourite tree anyway: tall and light, with a twisty grain excellent for boat-building, sticky latex for caulking, and big starchy fruit which, fermented, made the ideal food for an ocean voyage. But maisu also referred to easy, communal sharing of something good: like the knowledge of how to sail for weeks out on the Pacific, without maps, going by the stars.
2007年，夏威夷人民送給他一個禮物，一艘雙船身小船，Alingano Maisu，Maisu在當地語言指"在風暴中長出的面包果",每個人都能吃。面包果樹也是Mau最喜歡的樹，高大，輕爽，卷曲的果實適合造船，粘稠的乳膠適合堵縫蛇，富含淀粉的果實經過發酵，最適于做航海的食物。Maisu還指公司平易地分享好東西，比如不用地圖，而利用星星在太平洋航行幾個星期的知識。
