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毛·皮埃勒格—来自现代的古代航海家

来源:英语文库 时间:2018-12-15 点击:

IN THE spring of 1976 Mau Piailug offered to sail a boat from Hawaii to Tahiti. The expedition, covering 2,500 miles, was organised by the Polynesian Voyaging Society to see if ancient seafarers could have gone that way, through open ocean. The boat was beautiful, a double-hulled canoe named Hokule’a, or “Star of Gladness” (Arcturus to Western science). But there was no one to captain her. At that time, Mau was the only man who knew the ancient Polynesian art of sailing by the stars, the feel of the wind and the look of the sea. So he stepped forward.

1976年春天,毛·皮埃勒格主动提出帮忙。他将划小船从夏威夷出发,去塔西提岛,全程2500公里。此次远征由波利尼西亚航海协会组织,是要看看古代航海者是否可能曾经这么走下来——走开阔海域。航行用船很漂亮,一只双体独木舟,起名叫“霍库莱阿”,意为“快乐之星”(西方科学中的大角星)。但没人为她掌舵。当时,通晓古波利尼西亚人航海技术的只有毛一人。所以他站了出来。看星星、觉风动、观海貌,这些是古波利尼西亚人航海的依靠。

As a Micronesian he did not know the waters or the winds round Tahiti, far south-east. But he had an image of Tahiti in his head. He knew that if he aimed for that image, he would not get lost. And he never did. More than 2,000 miles out, a flock of small white terns skimmed past the Hokule’a heading for the still invisible Mataiva Atoll, next to Tahiti. Mau knew then that the voyage was almost over.

他是密克罗尼西亚人,而塔西提岛在东南方向的很远处,对于岛周围水和风的脾性,他不了解。但是他脑子里有一幅塔西提岛的图像。他知道,如果认准这幅图像作目标,他就不会迷路。他的确没迷路。2000多公里后,仍不见马泰瓦——塔西提岛旁的一座环礁。这时,“霍库莱阿号”边上掠过一群燕鸥,白色、个头很小。毛知道,他快到了。更多信息请访问:http://www.24en.com/

On that month-long trip he carried no compass, sextant or charts. He was not against modern instruments on principle. A compass could occasionally be useful in daylight; and, at least in old age, he wore a chunky watch. But Mau did not operate on latitude, longitude, angles, or mathematical calculations of any kind. He walked, and sailed, under an arching web of stars moving slowly east to west from their rising to their setting points, and knew them so well—more than 100 of them by name, and their associated stars by colour, light and habit—that he seemed to hold a whole cosmos in his head, with himself, determined, stocky and unassuming, at the nub of the celestial action.

一个月的旅行,罗盘、六分仪、海图,什么都没带。他并非彻底抵触现代工具。罗盘偶尔白天用得上;而且,胳膊上一块厚重的手表——至少是他老时的习惯。但是毛驾船并不靠纬度、经度、角度,也不靠任何数学计算。苍穹下面,他行走、行船;苍穹之上,密布成网的繁星,缓慢移动,由东向西,由初升点到下落点。对于它们,他太了解了,其中的100多个知道名字,相关联的星知道颜色、亮度、运动规律,他脑袋里好像有一个完整的宇宙,而他自己——那个坚决、敦实、谦逊的人——则坐镇天体运行的轴心。

Sharing breadfruit
分享面包果

Setting out on an ocean voyage, with water in gourds and pounded tubers tied up in leaves, he would point his canoe into the right slant of wind, and then along a path between a rising star and an opposite, setting one. With his departure star astern and his destination star ahead, he could keep to his course. By day he was guided by the rising and setting sun but also by the ocean herself, the mother of life. He could read how far he was from shore, and its direction, by the feel of the swell against the hull. He could detect shallower water by colour, and see the light of invisible lagoons reflected in the undersides of clouds. Sweeter-tasting fish meant rivers in the offing; groups of birds, homing in the evening, showed him where land lay.

毛出发起航时,会带上装满水的葫芦,还有捣碎了的薯块,并用叶子包好、捆结实。他会先把船摆正风向,然后沿着两颗星星的连线前进,一颗升起的星,一颗下落的星,一个是目的地星,一个是出发地星,目的地星在前,出发地星在后,只要这样,船就不会走偏。到了白天,他的向导转成朝阳和落日,还有“生命之母”海洋。感觉海浪拍打船体,就能读出岸的远近和方向。观察水的颜色,就能探知浅水的存在。云层下方反射过来的光,那是视线外的礁湖。鱼的味道变香了,意味着河流在看得见的远处流淌;看见群鸟夜归,陆地位置可知。

He began to learn all this as a baby, when his grandfather, himself a master navigator, held his tiny body in tidal pools to teach him how waves and wind blew differently from place to place. Later came intensive memorising of the star-compass, a circle of coral pebbles, each pebble a star, laid out in the sand round a palm-frond boat. This was not dilettantism, but essential study; on tiny Satawal Atoll, where he spent his life, deep-sea fishing out in the Pacific was necessary to survive.

一切都始于婴儿时期。他的爷爷本身就是航海大师。潮池中,小不点的他被爷爷抓在手里,爷爷教他辨别不同地方不同的风和不同的浪。之后是集中记忆星盘:沙滩上,一只棕榈叶小船,四周一圈珊瑚石,一颗石头代表一颗星星。这不是玩票,是重要的学习;到太平洋深处捞鱼,对萨塔瓦尔环礁上的居民来说,是生存的必须。在这座袖珍岛上,毛度过了他的一生。

Nonetheless, the old ways were changing fast. After Mau, at 18, was made a palu or initiated navigator, hung with garlands and showered with yellow turmeric to show the knowledge he had gained, no other Pacific islander was initiated for 39 years. Alone, he went out in his boat with the proper incantations to the spirits of the ocean, with proper “magical protection” against the evil octopus that lurked in the waters between Pafang and Chuuk, and with the wisdom never to get lost—or only once, when he was wrecked by a typhoon and spent seven months, with his crew, waiting to be rescued from an uninhabited island.

但是,旧的东西正在迅速改变。18岁时,毛成了一名“帕鲁”,就是经受训认证的航海大师。他颈挂花环,身洒黄色的姜黄雨,表明他已经掌握了相应的知识。但之后的39年间,再没有太平洋岛人成为“帕鲁”。毛驾着小船,独自一人出海,带着适合的咒语去应对海洋里的神灵,带着适合的“魔力保护”去对抗蛰伏在帕方和楚克之间水域中的邪恶章鱼,还带着永远都不会迷路的智慧——除了有一次。台风中,船失事了,无人岛上的七个月,他和船员等待救援到来。

As a palu, however, he could not allow his skills to die with him. He was duty-bound to pass them on. Hence his agreement to captain the Hokule’a. That voyage, which proved that the migration of peoples from the south and west to Hawaii was not accident, but probably a deliberate act of superlative sea- and starcraft, transformed the self-image of Hawaiians; and it changed Mau’s life. Suddenly, he was in demand as a teacher. Patiently, pointer in hand, one leg tucked under him, he would explain the star compass to new would-be navigators; but he allowed them to write it down. He knew they could never keep it all in their heads, as he had.

然而,作为一名帕鲁,他不能把身上的技艺一并带进坟墓。他有传承下去的责任。于是就有了同意驾驶“霍库莱阿号”的决定。那次航行证明了南面和西面来的夏威夷岛移民并非偶然至此,而极有可能是具备了高超航海术和占星术之后的有意为之。那次航行改变了夏威夷人对自我形象的认知;也改变了毛的生活。突然间,开始有地方邀他作老师。他会手拿讲课棒,一只腿坐在身下,耐心地给刚有想法成为航海家的学生解释星盘;他会允许他们把讲课内容记下来。他知道他们肯定不能像他一样把所有东西都记在脑子里。

Much of what he knew, of course, was secret. The secrecy was serious: when he spoke of spirits, his smiling face became deadly sober and even scared. To a very few students, he passed on “The Talk of the Sea” and “The Talk of the Light”. By doing so, he broke a rule that Micronesian knowledge should remain in those islands only. It seemed to him, though, that Polynesians and Micronesians were one people, united by the vast ocean which he, and they, had crisscrossed for millennia in their tiny boats.

当然,他知道的很多东西都是不能外传的秘密。保密可不是闹着玩的:他谈到神灵时,微笑的脸会变得死一般肃穆,甚至会显出害怕的神情。对于极少的学生,他还传授“海的语言”和“光的交谈”的课程。这么做可是破了矩:密克罗尼西亚人的知识不能流出众岛屿外。但对他来说,波利尼西亚人和密克罗尼西亚人是同一族人,广阔的大洋将他们统一在一起,而且,几千年来,他们驾着小船,相互往来。

In 2007 the people of Hawaii gave him a present of a double-hulled canoe, the Alingano Maisu. Maisu means “ripe breadfruit blown from a tree in a storm”, which anyone may eat. The breadfruit was Mau’s favourite tree anyway: tall and light, with a twisty grain excellent for boat-building, sticky latex for caulking, and big starchy fruit which, fermented, made the ideal food for an ocean voyage. But maisu also referred to easy, communal sharing of something good: like the knowledge of how to sail for weeks out on the Pacific, without maps, going by the stars.

2007年,夏威夷人民送给他一只双体独木舟“阿林格诺·麦舒”号作礼物,“麦舒”的意思是“暴风雨中从树上吹落的熟了的面包果”,每个人都能吃。不管怎样,面包果树是毛最喜爱的树:高且轻,扭曲的纹理是造船的绝佳材料,黏黏的乳胶可以用来堵缝,还有大大的富含淀粉的果实,发酵后是航海的理想食物。但是“麦舒”还意味着毫不费力地共同分享好东西:例如怎样在太平洋上航行数周,不带地图、靠星星导航。

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