PASSINGS: Mau Piailug
Mau Piailug
Traditional Polynesian ocean navigator
Mau Piailug, 78, a traditional navigator who in the 1970s began teaching Native Hawaiians how to use the stars, moon, wind, birds and currents to find their way around the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, died Sunday on Satawal, his tiny home island in the Federated States of Micronesia. He had diabetes.
Piailug was the navigator aboard Hokulea when the Hawaii-based Polynesian Voyaging Society’s 62-foot double-hulled ocean sailing canoe made its historic voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1976.
— Times staff and wire reports
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