Sea People- a book review
One of the greatest mysteries in the history of human migrations is how the peoples of Polynesia managed to populate the greatest expanse of any culture in history, from the small islands of Micronesia to Easter Island. The question has long fascinated people, as have the question of islands that appear to have been populated for a time, but were later abandoned. Christina Thompson’s recent book examines how outsiders have sought to understand the mystery of Polynesian’s origins from the earliest European explorers, to the experimental archaeologists of the last few decades.
Christina Thompson has a gift for nature writing, and she describes Polynesia’s physical environment evocatively. But the core of the book is a chronological discussion of the different people who encountered Polynesians, and how they sought to understand them. Throughout, this effort is marred by the cultural chasm between different peoples. When the great English explorer Captain Cook met a Polynesian navigator, Tupaia, he was amazed by the man’s practical skills; his counterpart even created a detailed map of a wide array of islands. But once Cook saw the map, he failed to understand it clearly enough to ask the proper questions that would allow us to interpret it. …