Dr. Huth is Donner Professor of Science in the Physics Department at Harvard University. He is also an historian and resurrector of primitive navigation skills. The below is part two of a lengthy and fascinating discussion on not just primitive navigational skills, but the consequences of allowing human skills or abilities to lie fallow. This conversation goes deep and is all the better for it.
You provide one fascinating example after
another of navigating abilities that would border on the supernatural if one
were not aware of the method. Once the method is revealed, and the skill set
begins to be developed one feels almost as if they are engaged in a Benedict
Cumberbatch-Sherlockian observational game of immense proportions. Is that how
you see the world to some degree? Where the “Oh, look at that pretty cloud”
becomes “That cloud type and movement contrasted with the wind at ground
level tells me to enjoy the picnic while you can because it’s about to turn
cold in 3-4 hours.” The more you learn and put the puzzle pieces together
the more you want to see?
Yes – a lot of people
thought for some time that ‘primitive’ peoples had some 6th sense
that allowed them to navigate, but it really is just a question of observations
and putting the pieces together. That
requires both a knowledge of ‘what to see,’ and also a lot of time out in the
world practicing those skills. Also, it
is sometimes difficult to get people who intuitively use these skills to be
able to articulate them because it has become so intuitive. They will simply say “there it is…” and
leave you guessing about what “it” is.
I find that sometimes I get into the overly intuitive mindset, and when
I’m teaching the skills, I have to back way off and get the students to work
through some of the steps.
One example is the motion of
stars, the sun, and the moon in the sky.
For me, it’s fairly intuitive, but it’s hard for students to grasp at
first and takes some coaching. At the
end of several lectures and time outside, the students begin to catch on. I can show them time lapse videos of star
motions, and the students can articulate roughly the latitude of the video and
which direction they’re looking in.
That’s just an example, but
it definitely starts off as a case of puzzling through, and then it begins to
become second nature.
There’s also the question of
knowing what to look for – once you get past one hurdle – say the positions of
the stars after sunset at one night, then there’s the question of how they move
over the course of that night, and then how they move over the course of the
year. One thing leads to another.
What do you say to someone who says, “Sure,
that’s neat that you can do all that navigation stuff, but I have this phone
right here that will do all that for me”?
There are two answers,
really. On the practical side GPS
receivers can stop functioning.
Batteries can fail, the receivers themselves can fail. Signals can be lost - particularly in deep
woods, or even with tall buildings around.
GPS has a weak signal-to-noise ratio and can be jammed, even
accidentally. Frequently GPS data are
incorrect.
Then, there is the question
of the other functions used by the part of the brain that processes
navigational information: the hippocampus.
Not only does the hippocampus create a mental map, but it also stores
long term memories, and plays a role in planning for the future. A study was done at UC London that showed
that people who followed GPS directions – their hippocampus was completely
quiet, whereas people who used their wits had their hippocampus lit up. There’s a kind of ‘use it or lose it’ to
how our cognition operates. If we don’t
use this part of our mind, it starts to atrophy and multiple skills may be
lost.
Your work is akin to that of Harold Gatty
and Tristan Gooley, while being deeply informative in its own right. Are there
other resources that seek to resurrect these methods that you find heartening?
One group that’s been quite successful is the Polynesian Voyaging
Society. They teach non-instrument
navigation to many Hawaiians, and there’s been a proliferation of PVS-like
groups throughout the Pacific. Their
techniques are definitely worth looking into!
They have some novel schemes that I haven’t seen from other
sources. I recommend “An Ocean in
Mind” by Will Kyselka about how an early PVS navigator, Nainoa Thompson learned
and adapted Mau Piailug’s navigation schemes to do non-instrumental
way-finding. Mau practiced navigation on
the island of Satawal in the Republic of Micronesia. Along similar lines, there
is “We the Navigators” by David Lewis about indigenous navigation. Now, while some of the schemes are limited to
water, I wouldn’t sell them short as use of star compasses, and wind compasses
are quite universally applicable.
Can you name a surprising
use of your methods that manifest in ways not quite navigational?
Telling the time of
day. The length and position of a
shadow on the ground can be used as a way of finding the local time. After sunrise, shadows grow shorter, and get
a minimum length at local noon, and then grow longer. This will change with latitude and the time
of year, but with some practice, you can use shadows to tell time.
Likewise telling the time at
night can be done with stars. I’ve
personally done this on a voyage with an outrigger canoe between two atolls in
the Pacific. We had a very rough passage
on one leg of the trip and I was waiting on Cassiopeia to rise that would
signal that dawn would be coming soon.
What aspect of primitive navigation do you
find the most challenging? The most rewarding?
These next three questions
can sort of be lumped together. One
area that I’m interested in is called ‘wave piloting’. Ocean swells and waves can be used as a
directional indicator, particularly in the equatorial Pacific where at least
three swell systems can be felt – the swells from the Southern Ocean, the North
Pacific, and the Trade Winds. Each one
has a slightly different character.
Both in the Eastern Solomon
Islands, and the Marshall Islands, navigators found their way by feeling the
influence of waves on the hull of voyaging canoes – how they pitch and
roll. Navigators can/could feel the
effects from the way the swells interact with islands – reflections,
refractions and other effects.
I traveled to the Marshall
Islands to learn from one of the last indigenous navigators, Captain Korent
Joel. He wanted to have scientists
validate the traditions of navigation in the Marshalls. It takes some time to
understand their language of navigation and translate this into practice. Also, the reflected swells can be quite weak
compared to the incoming, so it takes a lot time to be able to know what to
look for, but with some knowledge of the physics of ocean waves, I could get a
kind of short-cut to this knowledge.
In voyaging between the two
atolls, I was able to feel the presence of both the Trade Wind swell and a
swell from a storm system from the North Pacific, and was delighted when I
turned out to be correct.
Is there an aspect of primitive navigation
that you don’t quite have down but would love to know more? By that, I mean
have you come across references in old literature that piqued your interest,
but you have not quite been able to divine how a particular feat was
accomplished?
There’s a phenomenon
that translates as “underwater lightning” – a mysterious flash of light that
points toward land that’s seen at night.
I spoke with some experts on bioluminescence and we believe that it might
be caused by fish darting through sea water rich in dinoflagellates creating a
flash that looks like lightning. It’s
quite possible that the fish may be migrating from one island to another and we
can just use their own sense of navigation to help us along. I’ve managed to show that I can reproduce the
flashes of light in the laboratory, now the next step is to try to observe and
use it in the wild.
What’s next for you in the world of
primitive navigation? Any other works or projects in the pipeline?
Two projects – one is
following up on wave piloting in the Marshall Islands. I have some ideas on how to put this
practice on a more rigorous basis, and even write up a manual on “wave piloting
101”.
The other project is work on
deciphering tables of latitude and longitude from the Middle Ages – many of
these in Arabic. In trying to do a data
analysis, I found that they probably used the Cape Verde Islands off the coast
of North Africa as the location of their Prime Meridian. I want to follow up with an analysis of other
tables, to verify this. The point is
that the history books say that the Cape Verde Islands were discovered by the
Portuguese in 1460, but here is substantial evidence that people in the 12th
century knew about them.
One last question. What is one piece of
advice, tip, or “trick” that could offer to someone who has no idea what
primitive navigation is? Something that, if the mind is ready, can lead to an,
“Ah! So that’s why you do it!” moment.
One tip – which everyone should think about in their
travels is this – if you have an out-and-back trip somewhere, on your outbound
leg of the trip, look backward, particularly at turns or trail junctions – this
way, you have a visual memory of where you came from, and it will help you find
your way back with confidence. That’s
quite easy to do, but people often don’t think about it.
Comments
Post a Comment