Kiribati Ways

Stone Vaka

In Kiribati, stones are arranged into a canoe shape to teach about the stars and ocean swells GLOSSARY swells - rolling waves caused by trade winds and storms . To learn the star positions for his island, the student sits on a large rock – as if he is sitting in his canoe. When he learns about swells, the large stone represents his island. The smaller stones represent the wave patterns where the different swells meet.

Figure 1: Diagram based on the diagram which appears in We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific by D. Lewis, 1994, pg 229.