Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina ThompsonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a gem of a book. A topic that really needs to be discussed thoroughly, which this book seems to do. A book about a fascinating people, who had spread out more than any others until the British Empire.
The Tupaia section is absolutely fascinating. How is he not more famous?
His map was considered off because it doesn't depict a bird's eye view of NSEW coordinates, but rather it is based on winds (the point toward which the North wind blows) and currents. Also, a bird's eye view is not how they viewed travel (nor how anyone usually does when not using maps).
I remember reading Mau Piailug's obituary in the Economist, which I found intriguing, so I really appreciated being able to read more about the background of what he had been able to achieve here. And now I want to find his obituary again, since I remember it was a really nice one.
In fact, here it is: https://www.economist.com/obituary/20...
I do wish there had been more talk about the origins. It seems like the "out of Taiwan" theory is more or less accepted, but the author concentrated on what happened subsequently. Having lived in Taiwan for a while, I remember hearing a great deal of what similarities they still shared with many of their brethren in other islands, but this wasn't really touched upon.
I also wish she had talked more about Madagascar. I remember thinking it was crazy that it had also been populated by Polynesian people, but it had: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malagas.... This seems just as impressive as New Zealand, if not more so, but it was just mentioned in passing.
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