chart('rebbelib')
- Museum number
- Oc1944,02.931
- Description
-
Navigation chart 'rebbelib' made up of shells bound to palm-leaf sticks with bast strings. Semi-circular shape divided into diagonals.
- Dimensions
-
Height: 26.30 centimetres
-
Width: 72.50 centimetres
-
Depth: 2.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Information from Pacific Art in Detail: Micronesians, in the northwestern Pacific, are renowned for their navigational and sailing skills. Many of the island groups are made up of low-lying coral atolls, which means sailors are quiclky out of sight of land.
With the swells, currents and islands translated into palm-leaf ribs and shells, charts such as this were made only in the Marshall Islands were they were mnemonic devices to teach and to refresh the memory before heading out onto the open sea. Young men training to be navigators would learn to read the ocean for signs of currents and the 'reflections' of islands, in the way intersecting swells rocked the canoe.
They were different types of navigational charts. Some were made to teach common wave patterns around generic islands; others recorded specific features in the archipelago, mapped as travelling out from a starting island. Each navigator designed his own chart. This one is unusual as most were basically rectangular or cross-shaped.
-
Notes from Dr Arina Lebedeva from the Kunstkamera (Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology), St Petersburg (Oct 2013):
This chart is not a typical example.
For more information on Marshall Islands navigational charts see:
Davenport, William, Marshall Islands navigational charts, Imago Mundi, Vol 5 (1960) pp.19-26
Lewis, David, We the navigators, 1972 ANU Press, p.201
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1983–1986 16 Dec-29 Jun, London, BM, Museum of Mankind, Pattern of islands: Micronesia yesterday and today
- Acquisition date
- 1944
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1944,02.931
