Yesterday was my birthday. Wakana gave me two pair of shorts and two DVDs. She had shortened the shorts to a more suitable length, not the knee length half pants that everyone wears but above the knee, a more comfortable length. Later that evening my daughter called me.

In the morning we met Ji-Young at Paseo Park and sent her off with the Boonie Stompers. That is a group that hikes different trails around the island. There are a lot of places to hike here. Then we went to the canoe house to meet with Gordon and Manny. Manny got to talking about life on the island of Polowat and the legends there. Apparently Polowat and the Marshall Islanders share an ancient set of legends about the sons of Rondilap. Manny thinks the legends might have originated there because the Marshall Island group includes two islands named for the sons.

On August 26 our canoe house will host a Pwo ceremony. This is a religious ceremony ordaining new master navigators. We need to build an earth oven. Ordinarily this would just entail digging a hole but most of the area where we want to dig is considered by the government to be archaeologically significant. No digging without hundreds of forms, filled out, signed, lost, found, recycled as peat and then dug up again. The Government of Guam learned a lot about Vogons and applies all those lessons liberally. So we need to bring in a ton of sand, spread it on the ground on top of plywood, so we don't damage the grass, dig the earth oven into that, and then take it all away after the ceremony. Joy.

I did some searching for references to the Pwo and came up with some interesting sites.

Here is a list of Pwo References for a movie about navigation.
The site for the movie has several interesting sub sites. One of the most famous navigators was Urupiy, a man that Manny talks about with something like awe.
Here is Urupiy's biography.
Urupiy came from the island of Lamotrek.
You can see a photo gallery of Urupiy here.

You can see an article about Manny here.
Manny comes from the island of Polowat. There are photos of his home island in this gallery of photos from Micronesia.
If the photos come up on your computer four to a row then you can see the following important things on that page.
Row 16 shows a man wearing a 'thu'.
Row 17 shows a canoe house just like the one we built.
Row 20 shows a canoe similar to Quest in a canoe house.
Row 23 shows a picture of Rapwi. He is the navigator that will conduct the Pwo ceremony at our canoe house.
Row 24 shows a Micronesian meal of rice and coconut crab.
Row 24 shows a paddling canoe similar to the one we are building.
Row 30 shows a small sailing canoe similar to the one we want to build. Actually we want to build a fleet of these.

You can see Photos and a discussion of Polowat here.

Here is a canoe just like Quest under sail. And here is another photo of a voyaging canoe just like Quest.