Quote by Siosaia Taufa: “Every wave is a message from the ancestors. Learn to read the water.”

Pacific Islander navigation traditions involved reading waves, stars, and currents to cross thousands of kilometres of open ocean. This says that the natural world carries inherited wisdom if you know how to listen. Ancestors passed knowledge into the environment itself, and that knowledge is still available to those who pay attention.

The 2010s saw a global revival of interest in traditional Pacific wayfinding, partly inspired by the Polynesian Voyaging Society and voyages of the Hōkūleʻa canoe across the Pacific. Pacific communities were reclaiming indigenous navigation as both cultural heritage and a living practice relevant to modern identity and climate resilience.

Tongan scholar and cultural practitioner whose work focuses on Pacific indigenous navigation, oral traditions, and the relationship between ocean knowledge and identity. He has contributed to academic and community discussions on Pacific voyaging traditions and their role in contemporary Pacific identity.