Maritime Madams: Lehua Kamalu

Lehua Kamalu (c. 1980-present) was the first woman in modern history to captain and navigate a voyaging canoe using the traditional Polynesian practice of wayfinding. Without maps or GPS, she navigated the Pacific Ocean using cues from the currents, the winds and the stars. 

For Further Reading:

• This woman navigated a 3,000-mile Pacific voyage without maps or technology
• Talk Story with Hōkūle‘a Captain and Navigator Lehua Kamalu - Hawaii Magazine
• Women Increasingly Take The Helm To Perpetuate Polynesian Voyaging Traditions - Honolulu Civil Beat
• ‘We know the way': How Polynesian voyagers navigate Earth’s biggest ocean | Popular Science 

This month, we’re talking about Maritime Madams. Whether through scientific study, aquatic exploration, or legendary prowess, they harnessed the power of the bodies of waters that cover our earth. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Wamanica. This month we're talking about maritime madams. Whether
through scientific study, aquatic exploration, or legendary prowess, these women
harness the power of the bodies of water that cover
our earth. Imagine yourself at sea. The wind is cool

(00:25):
against your face and salty on your tongue. When you
turn your head from side to side, all you can
see is miles and miles of more ocean. Your vessel
is small, a quaint, two hulled canoe with a pair
of red sails, a tiny speck on an endless expanse
of bobbing waves. Your mission is to find land again.

(00:47):
The catch you won't be using maps, GPS, or any
other modern tool of navigation. You must rely on the skies,
the currents, and the stars to guide you. For thousands
of years anddidgenous Pacific island cultures preserved this practice of wayfinding.
Today's Womaniquin is one of the expert navigators reviving the
practice and in turn preserving and celebrating her Hawaiian cultural heritage.

(01:12):
Let's talk about Lehua Kamlu Laihua was born in New
York in the late nineteen eighties. Both of her parents
had Native Hawaiian ancestry, and when she was still young,
the family moved to Honolulu. There, her parents put Lahua
and her sisters in a Hawaiian immersion program, which offered

(01:32):
classes in the native Hawaiian language. Laihua grew up during
an era of renewed interest and pride in Pacific Island cultures.
Communities fought to revive native languages and traditions like hula dancing,
and re examined many of the historical narratives surrounding their ancestors.
For most of the twentieth century, many scholars relied on

(01:52):
the accidental drift theory of how Indigenous Islanders arrived on
the shores they called home, basically that they sailed to
places like Hawaii by mere coincidence. But by the nineteen seventies,
indigenous scholars were pushing back, arguing that this theory discounted
the navigational talents of their ancestors. Hawaiians didn't stumble on
their islands, they were purposefully searching for them, using their

(02:16):
expert knowledge of the skies and currents to point them
toward land. A trio of scholars and sailors interested in
reviving the ancient tradition of wayfinding founded the Polynesian Voyaging Society,
or PVS in nineteen seventy three. They built a replica
of the kind of two holed canoe that their ancestors
used and named it Hokuleya, or Star of Gladness in Hawaiian.

(02:40):
Since then, groups of indigenous sailors and navigators from PVS
have sailed Hokuleya and other voyage and canoes across the Pacific,
making trips to other islands to share wayfinding with other
Polynesian cultures. In nineteen ninety two, Leihua and her classmates
visited the Hokuleya after returned from one one of these voyages.

(03:02):
She later remembered feeling inspired by the way the vessel
seemed to connect ancient history to her present moment, explaining,
the reality was it was right there in our backyard,
and how amazing that we get to be so close
to this thing. After Leahua graduated high school, she studied
mechanical engineering at the University of Hawaii. During that time,

(03:23):
she stumbled on a volunteer opportunity at PVS. She didn't
plan to become a captain or a navigator, but after
her first meeting, she was hooked. I went to every
single training that happened after that, even though I said
I didn't have time for it, she said. After graduating,
Lahua ramped up her volunteer hours, helping with communications and
logistics for voyages. Eventually she was invited to train as

(03:46):
an apprentice navigator. In twenty eighteen, Lahua was helping plan
a voyage from Honolulu to Half Moon Bay in California.
Her teacher unexpectedly asked Lahua to captain the vessel. Herself
nervous to take on such a huge responsibility, but she
agreed anyway. Hello, my Coco, my name is Leo Kamalu.
Where you're on the ceiling your new Hikia Alia at

(04:10):
Sand Island. We are getting ready to depart tomorrow at
Dune on our boys to California. Entitled for twenty three days,
she led her crew on the hikan Aaliyah Hoku, Leah's
sister canoe across the Pacific, making her the first woman
to ever captain and navigate the vessel. The job wasn't easy, Lay,
who has spent all her waking hours taking cues from

(04:32):
the natural environment around her to guide their vessel to shore.
She explained, it's like the most extreme hobby you can
think of. When you're out on the ocean without being
able to cite any landmarks, it sort of gets you
into a little bit of a fearful panic state where
you start to question if you're even remotely on course.
Leihua paid close attention to sunrises, sunsets, and moon rises.

(04:55):
She examined the types of clouds gathering on the horizon,
the positions of the stars in the sky, the species
of birds circling above, the currents, and the wind patterns
all were clues to finding land again, which of course
she did. Since then, Laihua has also captained a three
thousand mile journey to Tahiti, retracing the path Hokulia took

(05:19):
on its maiden voyage for VPS almost fifty years earlier.
She's also sailed on several legs of vps's ongoing Moana
Nuyakia Voyage, in which hundreds of different crew members will
help circumnavigate the Pacific Ocean and visit roughly one hundred
indigenous territories. Their mission is to connect these diverse and
distant cultures and train the next generation of voyagers. Laihua

(05:42):
currently serves as a program director for VPS. She worked
as an advisor on both of Disney's Moana films, educating
animators on how to make the fictional heroine's ocean voyages
feel authentic to how she and other wayfinders sale in
real life. Laihua has also been named a National Geographic Explorer. Today,
she's still finding meaning and purpose and traversing the waves,

(06:06):
especially when it comes to finding collective solutions to the
worsening effects of climate change. As Lehua puts it, we
are the ones actually living on these sea roads. What
is our responsibility to that? All month, we're talking about
maritime Madams. For more information, find us on Facebook and
Instagram at Wamanica podcast special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my

(06:27):
favorite sister and co creator. Talk to you tomorrow.