经济学人453:航海家 Mau piailug

 　　Obituary;Mau Piailug

　　讣告；Mau Piailug
　　Pius Mau Piailug, master navigator, died on July 12th, aged 1 78
　　庇护Mau piailug ，航海家，于七月十二日逝世，终年78岁
　　In the spring of 1976 Mau Piailug offered to sail a boat from Hawaii to Tahiti. The expedition, covering 2,500 miles, was organised by the Polynesian Voyaging Society to see if ancient seafarers could have gone that way, through open ocean. The boat was beautiful, a double-hulled canoe named Hokule'a, or “Star of Gladness” (Arcturus to Western science). But there was no one to captain her. At that time, Mau was the only man who knew the ancient Polynesian art of sailing by the stars, the feel of the wind and the look of the sea. So he stepped forward.
　　1976年春天，Mau Piailug驾着一只小船从夏威夷驶到塔希提，这次远足航程2500海里，是由玻利尼西亚航海团体组织的，目的是为了看看远古的航海员能不能进入浩渺大洋，能走得多远，他们为此特别制造了一只名叫“哈古乐”（即欢乐之星，或是天文学上说的大角星)的双壳小船。可是为哈古乐找船长却并不容易，当时世界上只有Mau Piailug懂得古老的玻利尼西航海术,即通过感受星星、风和海的颜色状态来航行。所以他承担了这个任务，驾着哈古乐，从夏威夷航海，到达了塔希提。
　　As a Micronesian he did not know the waters or the winds round Tahiti, far south-east. But he had an image of Tahiti in his head. He knew that if he aimed for that image, he would not get lost. And he never did. More than 2,000 miles out, a flock of small white terns skimmed past the Hokule'a heading for the still invisible Mataiva Atoll, next to Tahiti. Mau knew then that the voyage was almost over.
　　Mau Piailug生长在西太平洋密克罗尼西亚，并不知道南太平洋塔希提岛的风是什么样子的，可是他在脑子里有个塔希提的映像，他知道只要朝着那个映像走，就不会迷路。航行了两千多海里了，他看到一群白色的小燕鸥飞快地飞过哈古尔，他知道它们是要飞向塔希提边上的马太瓦环礁，以此判断出他们快到达目的地了。
　　On that month-long trip he carried no compass, sextant or charts. He was not against modern instruments on principle. A compass could occasionally be useful in daylight; and, at least in old age, he wore a chunky watch. But Mau did not operate on latitude 3, longitude 4, angles, or mathematical calculations of any kind. He walked, and sailed, under an arching web of stars moving slowly east to west from their rising to their setting points, and knew them so well—more than 100 of them by name, and their associated stars by colour, light and habit—that he seemed to hold a whole cosmos 5 in his head, with himself, determined 6, stocky and unassuming, at the nub of the celestial 7 action.
　　在那一个月的航行里，他没有带指南针，没有六分仪，也没有任何图纸，他并不是个反对使用现代仪器的人，白天里指南针偶尔也能用下，年纪大的时候他也开始戴个笨笨的手表。不过，他不使用经度、纬度、角度等，也不做任何数学计算，行走，或航海，就在苍穹之下，头顶是东升西落慢慢移动的星星，他熟悉星星，能说出100多个星星的名字，每个颗星的位置、颜色、亮度，他的脑子里似乎装着整个宇宙，那个宇宙，与性格坚定、身材健壮结实、为人谦逊的他，就是这次航行的核心。
　　Sharing breadfruit
　　分享面包果
　　Setting out on an ocean voyage, with water in gourds 8 and pounded tubers tied up in leaves, he would point his canoe into the right slant 9 of wind, and then along a path between a rising star and an opposite, setting one. With his departure star astern and his destination star ahead, he could keep to his course. By day he was guided by the rising and setting sun but also by the ocean herself, the mother of life. He could read how far he was from shore, and its direction, by the feel of the swell 10 against the hull 2. He could detect shallower water by colour, and see the light of invisible lagoons 11 reflected in the undersides of clouds. Sweeter-tasting fish meant rivers in the offing; groups of birds, homing in the evening, showed him where land lay.
　　出海时，葫芦里装着饮水，叶子上系着干粮，他让小船和风形成一个固定的角度，沿着一颗升起的星星，和对面一颗正落下的星星形成的直线航行，白天有时候靠太阳指方向，有时候靠大海这生命的母亲指方向，通过船身感受水流，判断海岸的方向和距离，通过海水的颜色判断水深，通过天上云底的反光判断远方的礁湖。如果鱼的味道比平常甜点，就意味着淡水河离这里不远，如果傍晚有鸟群回家，就指示陆地的方向。
　　He began to learn all this as a baby, when his grandfather, himself a master navigator, held his tiny body in tidal pools to teach him how waves and wind blew differently from place to place. Later came intensive memorising of the star-compass, a circle of coral pebbles 13, each pebble 12 a star, laid out in the sand round a palm-frond boat. This was not dilettantism 14, but essential study; on tiny Satawal Atoll, where he spent his life, deep-sea fishing out in the Pacific was necessary to survive.
　　Mau Piailug的祖父是一名航海家，从小，祖父把小小的他绑在潮汐湖里，让他体会不同的地方拍打着的浪和风，体会各地风浪的区别。等他长大一点，就让他记星图，用一圈珊瑚石，每个代表一颗星星，画一只棕榈叶形状的船，船边上摆着这些珊瑚石，这些并不是玩玩，而是基本的学习。在他生活的萨它瓦尔礁岛上，他们靠到太平洋捕深海鱼维生。
　　Nonetheless, the old ways were changing fast. After Mau, at 18, was made a palu or initiated 15 navigator, hung with garlands and showered with yellow turmeric to show the knowledge he had gained, no other Pacific islander was initiated for 39 years. Alone, he went out in his boat with the proper incantations to the spirits of the ocean, with proper “magical protection” against the evil octopus 16 that lurked 17 in the waters between Pafang and Chuuk, and with the wisdom never to get lost—or only once, when he was wrecked 18 by a typhoon and spent seven months, with his crew, waiting to be rescued from an uninhabited island.
　　然而，旧日的方式在飞快地变化，在他18岁的时候，他成了一名“巴鲁”（世传航海家），戴着花环，姜黄沐身以表示他学到的知识，那时候，他是39年以来第一名巴鲁。他独自航行，带着合适的海神祝语，带着合适的神秘保护，让小船免遭潜伏在pafang到楚克之间的毒章鱼陷害。因为他的智慧，他从没在海上迷过路，只有一次遇到台风，和他的队友一起被困在无人的岛上，等了七个月，才等到救援。
　　As a palu, however, he could not allow his skills to die with him. He was duty-bound to pass them on. Hence his agreement to captain the Hokule'a. That voyage, which proved that the migration 19 of peoples from the south and west to Hawaii was not accident, but probably a deliberate act of superlative sea- and starcraft, transformed the self-image of Hawaiians; and it changed Mau's life. Suddenly, he was in demand as a teacher. Patiently, pointer in hand, one leg tucked under him, he would explain the star compass to new would-be navigators; but he allowed them to write it down. He knew they could never keep it all in their heads, as he had.
　　巴鲁不能让自己的航海技能身后无传，他有责任将技能传给他人，所以才答应做哈古乐的船长。哈古乐那次航行，证明人类从南部和西部向夏威夷迁徙并不是一次偶然，很可能是一场做了充分准备、使用了最高深的航海知识和占星知识的行为。哈古乐此行，改变了夏威夷人的形象，也改变了Mau的人生，使他突然就成了一名老师，手执教鞭，单脚盘地，对这些可能成为航海家的新学生解释星盘，他允许学生做笔记，因为他们不可能全都像他一样能够将星盘牢记在心。
　　Much of what he knew, of course, was secret. The secrecy 20 was serious: when he spoke 21 of spirits, his smiling face became deadly sober and even scared. To a very few students, he passed on “The Talk of the Sea” and “The Talk of the Light”. By doing so, he broke a rule that Micronesian knowledge should remain in those islands only. It seemed to him, though, that Polynesians and Micronesians were one people, united by the vast ocean which he, and they, had crisscrossed for millennia 22 in their tiny boats.
　　当然这些东西有很多是严肃的秘密，当他说到灵魂的时候，微笑的脸顿时冷静下来，甚至显得很神圣，他只教很少的学生“和大海交谈”，“和光线交流”，并且在教学生这些秘密的时候，他打破了密克罗尼西亚知识不外传的规矩，因为在他看来，玻利尼西亚人和密克罗尼西亚人是一家人，联结着他们是的他们千百年来驾小舟穿行过无数次的广阔海洋。
　　In 2007 the people of Hawaii gave him a present of a double-hulled canoe, the Alingano Maisu. Maisu means “ripe breadfruit blown from a tree in a storm”, which anyone may eat. The breadfruit was Mau's favourite tree anyway: tall and light, with a twisty grain excellent for boat-building, sticky latex for caulking 23, and big starchy fruit which, fermented 24, made the ideal food for an ocean voyage. But maisu also referred to easy, communal 25 sharing of something good: like the knowledge of how to sail for weeks out on the Pacific, without maps, going by the stars.
　　2007年，夏威夷人民送给他一个礼物，一艘双船身小船，Alingano Maisu，Maisu在当地语言指"在风暴中长出的面包果",每个人都能吃。面包果树也是Mau最喜欢的树，高大，轻爽，卷曲的果实适合造船，粘稠的乳胶适合堵缝蛇，富含淀粉的果实经过发酵，最适于做航海的食物。Maisu还指公司平易地分享好东西，比如不用地图，而利用星星在太平洋航行几个星期的知识。