The ‘Art of Voyaging’ exhibition was launched last Tuesday evening at the National Museum of Samoa.

“More than six hundred years ago, our Oceanic ancestors made the first discovery of all of the known islands in the world’s largest ocean,” said the Associate Minister of Education, Sports and Culture , Tu’u’u Anasi’i in his opening address.

“Through mere ingenuity, they exploited learned knowledge of star navigation, ship design and construction, and with pure determination they sailed windward.”

“The celestial stars showed them the way their spirits were one with the ocean, and their courage urged them forward.”

“Such an incredible legacy, our ancestors bore on the wide range of seafaring vessels, our diverse cultures and our civilisations.”

He said that “over time they settled atolls and volcanic islands, they traded, waged war, intermarried and forged alliances and all the while, we were carried from one island to another by the drua as our Fijian neighbours say, the kalia as the Tongans say, and the alia as we would name it here in Samoa.”

Read more at Samoa Observer