Long Tailed Cuckoo and The Explorers is a painting by Patricia Howitt which was uploaded on February 11th, 2013.
Long Tailed Cuckoo and The Explorers
One of the illustrations for the book 'Taketakerau, The Millennium Tree'.... more
Title
Long Tailed Cuckoo and The Explorers
Artist
Patricia Howitt
Medium
Painting - Acrylic On Board
Description
One of the illustrations for the book 'Taketakerau, The Millennium Tree'.
About the year 900 AD Polynesian explorers, venturing into southern waters from the area of Tahiti and the Society Islands, sighted land for the first time after about a month at sea . They named it ' the land of the long white cloud'. Within a hundred years, the colonization of Aotearoa New Zealand began.
The flight of migratory birds and passages of the planets were the only aids used by these Polynesian seafarers in their long journeys across the vast Pacific Ocean. Whether they had any idea of the round earth is not known, but their ability to hold a course for a distant land by steering to a succession of planets was phenomenal.
Uploaded
February 11th, 2013