Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Maps
- Acknowledgments
- Map
- Introduction: Encircling the ocean
- 1 Civilization without a center
- 2 Trading rings and tidal empires
- 3 Straits, sultans, and treasure fleets
- 4 Conquered colonies and Iberian ambitions
- 5 Island encounters and the Spanish lake
- 6 Sea changes and spice islands
- 7 Samurai, priests, and potentates
- 8 Pirates and raiders of the Eastern seas
- 9 Asia, America, and the age of the galleons
- 10 Navigators of Polynesia and paradise
- 11 Gods and sky piercers
- 12 Extremities of the Great Southern Continent
- 13 The world that Canton made
- 14 Flags, treaties, and gunboats
- 15 Migrations, plantations, and the people trade
- 16 Imperial destinies on foreign shores
- 17 Traditions of engagement and ethnography
- 18 War stories from the Pacific theater
- 19 Prophets and rebels of decolonization
- 20 Critical mass for the earth and ocean
- 21 Specters of memory, agents of development
- 22 Repairing legacies, claiming histories
- Afterword: World Heritage
- Notes
- Index
2 - Trading rings and tidal empires
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Maps
- Acknowledgments
- Map
- Introduction: Encircling the ocean
- 1 Civilization without a center
- 2 Trading rings and tidal empires
- 3 Straits, sultans, and treasure fleets
- 4 Conquered colonies and Iberian ambitions
- 5 Island encounters and the Spanish lake
- 6 Sea changes and spice islands
- 7 Samurai, priests, and potentates
- 8 Pirates and raiders of the Eastern seas
- 9 Asia, America, and the age of the galleons
- 10 Navigators of Polynesia and paradise
- 11 Gods and sky piercers
- 12 Extremities of the Great Southern Continent
- 13 The world that Canton made
- 14 Flags, treaties, and gunboats
- 15 Migrations, plantations, and the people trade
- 16 Imperial destinies on foreign shores
- 17 Traditions of engagement and ethnography
- 18 War stories from the Pacific theater
- 19 Prophets and rebels of decolonization
- 20 Critical mass for the earth and ocean
- 21 Specters of memory, agents of development
- 22 Repairing legacies, claiming histories
- Afterword: World Heritage
- Notes
- Index
Summary
That a reconstructed voyaging canoe from Polynesia should make a twenty-first-century journey to Micronesia to define the Pacific is historically fitting, for the water world of small islands and atolls had long played a key role in Oceanian histories. Archeologists have determined that Taiwan was a likely origin point for voyagers out towards the Marianas, and the indigenous language is a first-order branch of the Austronesian family that spread east. In addition, ceramics from the third millennium BCE seem to share common features with Marianas Red Ware and shell artifacts.
Successive generations of voyaging settlers were original human colonizers. In the islands and atolls, Micronesian ancestors developed sophisticated trading and tribute systems and have been renowned across generations for their wayfinding genius. Navigator Mau Piailug himself hailed from Satawal and carried in him traditions of an epic heritage.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Pacific WorldsA History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures, pp. 23 - 36Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012