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National Geographic : 1974 Dec
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"Tell the king we are inFijian waters" THE YEAR: about 1820. The event: the return of King Taufa'ahau to Tonga after a tattooing ceremony in Samoa that solem nized his coming of age. The location: some where south-or was it west or east?-of Samoa. No one knows. The king's naviga tors have lost their way. In dire puzzlement the navigators murmur among themselves. In another canoe, the aged and blind Kaho-Tuita Kahomovailahi-a navigator of low rank, asks his son Po'oi, "What are they saying?" The boy replies that the navi gators are lost. Kaho orders his canoe turned into the wind. As the sail luffs and the vessel slows, he climbs onto the starboard hull and, SAMOA Q ISLANDS FIJI . 0 ISLANDS / . , /.LAKEMBA .. LAU TONGA G" * " GROUP ISLANDS held fast by his son, dips his hand into the sea (right). Then he announces, "Tell the king we are in Fijian waters." "That is the old blind one," the king's navigators scoff in disbelief. "What should we do?" the king himself asks Kaho. "Our food and water are almost finished." Kaho requests the location of the sun. Then he says, "Tell the king that when the sun is in the middle of the sky he will see land." A few hours later the flotilla reaches Lakemba, an island in the Lau Group east of the Fijis. In gratitude, the king makes Kaho his chief navigator and a noble. From this time, he and his descendants become known as Fafakitahi-Feelers of the Sea. Almost 150 years later Kaho's great grandson revealed that his ancestor's act of touching the sea was designed to impress the superstitious Tongans. Kaho knew land was near because his son had reported to him the presence of a fish-eating bird that never ventures far from land. O 768
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