“How a Girl was the First Navigator”
Douglas Arvidson’s short story, based on an ancient Pacific legend, has been published by the Festival of the Pacific Arts Publications
When I was living on a sailboat on Guam studying traditional star-path navigation under the late Manny Sikau, a master navigator from Polowat Atoll, we discussed the fact that only men were allowed to become navigators. Manny then made brief mention of a Polowatese legend regarding women and navigation, saying only that according to this legend the daughter of an island chief was taught the secrets of navigation by a kulu bird. It was she who then taught those secrets to the men of Polowat. I have used this as the basis for imagining this short tale about a boy who is blamed by the men of the atoll for their poor fishing. He is ashamed and devastated, but one night he is visited by a girl who is filled with magic. Here is a short excerpt:
…When he wakes up, it is dark. Everyone is asleep. He hears a voice, the voice of the young girl that came from the kulu bird. It is calling to him. Quietly, he slips out of the house and walks to the beach, to the place where he had met the kulu bird the day before.
But he doesn’t see a bird. Instead he sees the shadowed shape of a young girl standing on the sand close to the water. It is a dark night, the sky is filled with stars. The starlight plays off the girl’s body and her eyes seem to sparkle with the star’s reflections off the water. She takes his hand and says, “Don’t be afraid. I am going to show you how the answer to your sadness, to your shame, lies in the stars.”
The book of Pacific writing may be ordered at: pacificfestival2016@gmail.com
