The Navigator and the Aviator

My friend lent me a book to read. It’s called The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, by Wade Davis (House of Anansi Press). Davis is an anthropologist who has been around the world. The book describes various isolated Indigenous cultures and what happens to many of them once they encounter Western technology and values. The stories are ugly, filled with violence and disease. There is sometimes genocide involved. Davis emphasizes what is lost when these cultures clash. The Indigenous population has often accumulated centuries of wisdom that generally dies along with the tribes. A deep, intuitive connection with nature is almost always a casualty when an Indigenous group succumbs to Western influence. The author mourns the disappearance of hundreds of languages, customs, and worldviews. I tend to agree with much of what he says in the book, but not all of it.

The chapter in Davis’s book about the Pacific is the best, in my opinion. He vividly describes the history of the peoples who live on the islands in the Pacific Ocean. Before the Europeans came, these tribes roamed the sea from New Zealand to Tahiti to Hawaii to Easter Island. They did all this by dead reckoning. They had no compasses, no maps, no chronometers, no GPS. Davis talks about a journey he made with a friend of his, one of the descendants of these early mariners. He speaks eloquently of this man’s skill in guiding a sailing canoe across hundreds of miles of open water, and all without the aid of modern technology.

So, how did Pacific Islanders cross the ocean without modern equipment? The way Davis explains it is that in each community there was (and sometimes still is) a “navigator.” The person is trained from early on in life to know the secrets of navigation. The author mentions one such navigator being placed in a tidal pool as a child to learn the feel of the ocean.

Over time, a navigator learns skills that have been passed down through the generations. A navigator becomes familiar with the types of clouds, with the currents and swells in the sea, with the marine animals, with the winds, and with the timing and positions of the stars as they rise above the eastern horizon every night. In the mind of the navigator, a myriad of signs coalesce into a gestalt that allows the person to find his way to distant islands. The navigator is an essential member of the community. In some ways, the individual ranks higher than the chief.

The story of the navigator is amazing. Somehow, it makes me think back forty years to my experience as an aviator in the U.S. Army. Can a tribal navigator’s path be compared to mine? Maybe not, but I want to try.

A navigator in the Polynesian tradition is a unique individual. He possesses talents and skills that nobody else in his culture has. He is chosen and trained at an extremely young age. From early on in his life, he sits high in the hierarchy of the tribe.

I started flight school when I was twenty-two. In the eyes of a navigator, I would appear to be a very late bloomer. I never acquired the intense connection with flight that the navigator has with the sea. I never had the lineage of a navigator. I was just some guy with the physical and mental aptitudes necessary to pilot a helicopter. I didn’t need to come from a family of navigators. I just needed to bust my ass and then sell my soul to the Army for a few years. I never had to memorize an endless multitude of details in order to fly. I had tools that helped me. I had books and weather reports and flight instruments to aid me. I had technology.

The navigator almost always knew where he was and how to get where he needed to go. The author describes the navigator as being in a trance while he did his job. I get that. There were times as a pilot, not many but enough, when I was in that mental state where I was just doing. In an emergency, I would just act. I would be one with the aircraft. It’s a Zen thing. There were moments when I was in the “place before thinking.” So, in a small way, I can relate to the navigator.

Is the navigator’s way of life better than mine was? I have no idea. He knows and understands things that I can’t. He is special. I’m not. It might be better that I am not a chosen one. One disadvantage with traditional societies is that there is a lack of opportunity. A person gets pigeonholed early. In Western culture, even with all our faults, there is at least the possibility that an individual might choose their own way in life.

I think we should try to understand and preserve ancient wisdom. I also think we should properly use the knowledge we have in our culture and maybe integrate the old ways with the new. It would be worth a try.

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Frank Pauc is a former Army aviator, a longtime trucking-company supervisor, and a contributor to The Havok Journal. A West Point graduate from the Class of 1980, he completed the Military Intelligence Basic Course and flight school, served with the 3rd Armored Division in West Germany and the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, and left the Army in 1986. He later taught citizenship classes through Voces de la Frontera in Milwaukee, took part in peace and protest work, and writes largely about veterans, family, grief, and the long aftermath of military service.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.