Tē Uira Te Faatou Arii

Polynesian navigator who revived traditional wayfinding methods

Tē Uira Te Faatou Arii (1898-1978) from Raiatea Island preserved ancestral Polynesian navigation knowledge when Western methods dominated. He memorized star paths across 5 million square kilometers of ocean without instruments.

During WWII, he guided Allied ships through minefields using wave pattern recognition. His 1962 voyage from Tahiti to New Zealand in a traditional double-hulled canoe proved ancient migration routes were intentional. This revolutionized anthropological theories about Polynesian settlement.

Arii developed the 'Star Compass' teaching system now used worldwide. His students included NASA astronaut Lacy Veach, who said: He taught us to navigate by the universe's heartbeat. The European Space Agency consulted his methods for deep-space navigation algorithms.