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Loading... East is a Big Bird: Navigation and Logic on Puluwat Atollby Thomas Gladwin
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Anthropolgy book picked purely because it's location was Puluwat and I needed Micronesia for the states challenge. Very readable. The author wanted to study the navigation culture of these people to try to ascertain how to measure intelligence and cognitive thinking without IQ tests. The Puluwat navigators hop in a canoe and sail off on the many "Seaways", such as in America we would hop in a car and navigate the highway. The way they build canoes, learn to navigate and island hop is extraordinary. When a non-native product proves superior, they integrate it into their culture, but on their own terms. For example, a compass is used only some of the time to just keep on a course, never to determine the sailing location. Instead a complex arrangement of stars, waves, sea birds and location sightings (reference islands, reefs, water changes) all keep the canoes on course. ( ) no reviews | add a review
Puluwat Atoll in Micronesia, with a population of only a few hundred proud seafaring people, can fulfill anyone's romantic daydream of the South Seas. Thomas Gladwin has written a beautiful and perceptive book which describes the complex navigational systems of the Puluwat natives, yet has done so principally to provide new insights into the effects of poverty in Western cultures. The cognitive system which enables the Puluwatans to sail their canoes without instruments over trackless expanses of the Pacific Ocean is sophisticated and complex, yet the Puluwat native would score low on a standardized intelligence test. The author relates this discrepancy between performance and measured abilities to the educational problems of disadvantaged children. He presents his arguments simply and clearly, with sensitive and detailed descriptions and many excellent illustrations. His book will appeal to anthropologists, psychologists, and sailing enthusiasts alike. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)623.89Technology Engineering and allied operations Military Engineering and Marine Engineering Naval architecture; Shipbuilding NavigationLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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