A mystery migration across the East Pacific; a story that traverses science, history and mythology; a tale that awakens the spirit of adventure and reveals a search for freedom and a homeland
Written by an Orator Chief and native Samoan, a patient teacher of the Island Nation's history, culture, genealogy, religious rituals, and language, with a passion for research, this book builds on a plethora of scientific studies from the last 250 years, from the day Ferdinand Magellan first discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1519.
Postulating the origin of the Polynesian migration has been a conundrum compounded by the fragmentation of the studies undertaken. But author and Orator Fata Ariu Levi coalesces the results and connects the dots of diverse studies to weave a complex tapestry and reveal the ocean floor's multi-colored mosaic of the Navigators' cultural development, history, language and ethnicity.
Follow a Polynesian migration; out of Africa, out of the Levant, out of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, out of the Eurasian steppe, out of India, out of mainland China, out of the Asiatic Archipelago, out of the Malay archipelago, out of the Indonesian archipelago, crossing the Wallace Line into the Bismarck Archipelago, and on to East Pacific Ocean.
Explore the physical sciences: anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, Pacific Ocean geology, the ecosystem of Southeast Asia and more. Add the social sciences: cultural functionalism and structuralism, social organization. Follow ethnological studies of the Navigators'-Samoans' and Manu'ans'-cultural, economic, heath, and well-being in isolation dating back to the Neolithic period.
Discover one of the oldest languages in the world, and see how language morphology, phonology, particle verbs, and sentence structures reveal the path of Polynesian, Proto-Austronesian, Proto-Indo-European, and even Sanskrit languages-languages of the RigVedas, and of the Dravidians-agglutinative as opposed to inflectional.
Then look at the wonders of DNA sequencing of the Samoan genome-mtDNA revealing a matrilineal family and social structure, Y-chromosome markers revealing the Samoan chieftain structure for leadership and management development.
Orators are the poets of the Polynesian Navigators, delivering messages from ancient ancestors. They are custodians of culture and the operational management of the family organization. And Chiefs are the master storytellers of the culture's mythology, legends, folklore, and family genealogy. And the myths reveal the history.
With the guidance of Orator Chief, Fata Ariu Levi, discover the timeline of the Polynesian Navigators' migration, with waves of voyages following that first migration out of Africa around 60,000 years ago-journeys into the Asiatic Archipelago, Indonesia, and the Malay archipelago before the last Glacial Maximum, when the Sahul Shelf was part of Australian continent. Learn how the Austronesian-speaking people were an amalgamation of migrants into the Asiatic Archipelago. Meet the Seafaring population of the coastal line from Taiwan to Madagascar off the coast of East Africa. And follow the Navigators to Polynesia.
It is the land of Mythology.