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I am a leaf on the wind tattoo5/16/2023 This mystical relationship was forged by the actions of a large number of patron deities that held sway over daily activities, such as agriculture, fishing, navigation, warfare, and the creation of art forms including tattoo, while more “personal” gods watched over individuals, families, and local communities. Over time, the inhabitants of Polynesia not only became farmers, fishermen, seafaring merchants, and artisans they also developed complex political and religious institutions where obedience to chiefs, royal families, priests, ancestors, and the gods was part of everyday existence.įrom a religious perspective, Polynesian peoples shared a widespread belief that the universe was governed by invisible forces that could determine, influence, and control the events of life and human destiny itself. However, it would be another eight hundred years before their descendants colonized other parts of Oceania, including the Marquesas (100 B.C.), Easter Island (400 A.D.), Hawaii (500 A.D.), Tahiti (600 A.D.), and New Zealand (900 A.D.). They told stories about the descent of chiefs from gods, the voyages of ancestral heroes, and myths of creation, and they also left behind tattooing tools and pottery fragments that broadly resemble tattooing designs. For their new lives among the coral atolls and volcanic peaks, they transported seeds, domesticated animals, and agricultural implements. The Lapitas traveled immense distances, sometimes over two thousand miles of ocean without landfall, navigating by the stars and without the aid of instruments. Down through the millennia, these “Vikings of the Pacific” made the ocean realm of what is the Pacific their own. When the first Europeans arrived on the beaches of Polynesia in the late 16th century, the islands were home to some 500,000 people descended from the great seafaring Lapitas who reached Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa by at least 1100 B.C., if not earlier. The Pacific Ocean covers one-third of the planet and washes the shores of numerous island chains, including Polynesia that literally means “many islands.” Roughly speaking, the geographical area of Polynesia forms a nearly perfect triangle defined by Hawaii at the northern tip supported by its two bases: New Zealand at the western edge and Easter Island at the eastern boundary.
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