Pwo

What it is

The term carries three meanings. First, it is the esoteric art of navigation itself. Second, it names a person who has mastered that art. Third, it describes the act of bringing someone else into it, since those already initiated may later initiate others. The word is spelled in different ways from island to island: Puluwat records give ppwo, and a Trukese dictionary gives pwpwo. Someone who completes the rite is a palu, a navigator. Knowledge such as chants stayed restricted by ancient custom, and was passed on to an apprentice only after the rite had been performed.

Origins and history

Islanders in the region say the ceremony started on Pollap, or on an island close to it. The name of that island, Pwollap, is explained as the centre or origin of navigation. It joins the word for being brought in as a navigator, ppwo, with lap, which means big or important. On Pulap this account is a matter of pride, and people there hold that Puluwat and other islanders accept that navigation had its beginning on Pulap. Field notes made by Ernst Sarfert on Polowat in 1909, published later, describe the taboos that pupils lived under.

Decline and return

Before the Second World War the ceremony was held often. Western ways and missionary teaching after the war turned people away from traditional practices, and the rite stopped. On Satawal it was last performed between 1950 and 1952. Mau Piailug, who would later become known for helping Hawaiians recover their navigational skills, was the final person to go through it, in 1951. Silence followed for thirty-nine years. In May 1990 a master navigator, Jesus Urupiy, held the ceremony on Lamotrek with help from an American ethnographer and documentary maker, Eric Metzgar. Ali Haleyalur, Urupiy's son, took part with four others, and the event was made into the film Spirits of the Voyage.

Navigators overseas

On 18 March 2007 Piailug led the first ceremony for navigators on Satawal in fifty-six years. Five Hawaiians and eleven other people were made master navigators that day. The Polynesian Voyaging Society presented him with a double-hulled canoe, the Alingano Maisu, for the part he had played in reviving traditional wayfinding in Hawaii. In March 2008 he led the rite again, this time for Hekenukumai Nga Iwi Busby, a Māori navigator. These ceremonies brought people from well outside the Caroline Islands into a practice long kept within a few atolls.

What it means

For the person who goes through it, the rite is a turning point. It opens the door to adulthood, places him in a small group that is set apart, and gives him the right to learn navigational lore that is kept hidden. Preparation takes years. Accounts of the examination suggest that candidates must show what they know before further teaching begins. The lore survives only through living masters, so when the last of them died without successors the ceremony drifted toward extinction. Its return, in the 1990s and after, is treated as the recovery of something precious.

How Pwo is kept

Candidates are young men who have studied privately, often for seven or eight years. When the navigators judge a group to be ready, the community organises the initiation, which some accounts call a poa. The central part is an examination of each candidate's knowledge of navigation, followed by further teaching from the man considered the most skilled navigator on the island. Throughout instruction the pupils live under a set of taboos. Those rules are at their tightest over the opening four days and nights, and the pupils cannot step outside the canoe house at any point.

When and where

There is no fixed date. The rite happens at intervals, whenever a group of students is thought to have reached the standard the navigators expect. Written accounts place the last Satawal ceremony of the early 1950s between 1950 and 1952, and record the next one at Lamotrek in May 1990. Later ceremonies on Satawal fell in March 2007 and March 2008.

It belongs to the Caroline Islands in Micronesia, and is strongest on the atolls of Satawal, Lamotrek, Pollap and Puluwat. Islanders there say the practice began on Pollap or somewhere close by. Ceremonies have also been held for navigators from Hawaii and for a Māori navigator, bringing people from outside the islands into the same rite.

What Pwo means

The rite carries more than a certificate. It is seen as a gateway into adulthood for a young man, and as admission into a small, privileged circle with the right to learn hidden navigational knowledge. Punakit, Yaapuk and Urupiy, initiated by Suuta of Puluwat in 1932, are recorded as going through it. Because the lore was held sacred and taught only to the initiated, its survival depended on living masters. When those masters died, the ceremony came near to ending, and its return is treated as a recovery of something precious.

Questions people ask about Pwo

See also

Tribal youth dormitoryA communal house where a tribe's unmarried young people sleep, learn and serveTā mokoThe traditional permanent tattooing of the Māori people of New Zealand, marking identity and status.PeʻaThe traditional Samoan rite of full-body tattooing for men, tapped by master artistsRite of passageA ceremony that marks leaving one group and entering another, with a new status

Good reading and sources

• Pwo on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.