著者

秋道 智彌 Tomoya Akimichi

出版者

国立民族学博物館

雑誌

国立民族学博物館研究報告 = Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology (ISSN:0385180X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.10, no.4, pp.931-957, 1986-03-29

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This paper describes the yetak system, one of the spatialallocation techniques for sea space, employed by navigators inthe Caroline Islands of Micronesia. Without modern navigationaids Micronesian navigators have utilized particular strategiesfor locating themselves on and allocation of the sea. In general,a sea area between two neighboring islands is conceptuallysegmented into 28 sections. In inshore waters, where an islandis visible, these are recognized by serial changes of island shape.Further seawards, where an island is not visible, the use ofa reference island(s) coordinated with the movement of the canoeenables navigators to reckon their position. One yetak is equiva-lentto about 18-20 km. The yetak system is the deliberateapplication of knowledge of both the sidereal compass andisland orientation (woofanuw).