Reading the stars: Moana and the real voyagers

In the makers' own words

“It wasn't until after our trip that the character of Moana, this teenager who dreams of becoming a navigator and a voyager, grew out of that”

Ron Clements, co-director of Moana, 25 October 2016 · NBC News, 'Dance, Storytelling, and the Art of Wayfinding: Behind the Scenes of Disney's Moana'

“Moana is indomitable, passionate and a dreamer with a unique connection to the ocean itself”

John Musker, co-director, 2014 · NBC News, 'Meet Moana: Disney Announces Its First Pacific Islander Princess'

A story that changed on the way

Moana was first meant to be a film about the demigod Māui. Then, in 2012, the directors Ron Clements and John Musker went on research trips to Fiji, Samoa and Tahiti. They learned that the ancestors of Polynesians had crossed thousands of miles of open ocean on purpose, long before European ships came, and that for a long period the voyaging seems to have stopped. Clements says the girl at the centre of the film, 'this teenager who dreams of becoming a navigator and a voyager', grew out of that trip.

Disney also set up a group of Pacific Islanders, the Oceanic Story Trust, to advise on the story as it went through nine versions. The Trust pushed back on some ideas: an early bald Māui was given long hair, and a scene of Moana throwing coconuts in a tantrum was cut. The animators consulted the Polynesian Voyaging Society on canoe details so that the boats would look and sail like the real thing.

The real canoe

The Polynesian Voyaging Society launched Hōkūleʻa in Honolulu on 8 March 1975. The name means 'star of gladness'. It is the Hawaiian name for Arcturus, a bright star that passes almost directly overhead at Hawaiʻi's latitude, so a navigator who sees it straight above knows the islands are near.

In 1975 no living Hawaiian knew the old methods for crossing deep ocean. The Society asked Mau Piailug, a master navigator of the Weriyeng school from Satawal, to share what he knew. He had learned 'stars, swells, and birds' from his grandfather as a small boy. In 1976 he guided Hōkūleʻa from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti without instruments. Later he trained Nainoa Thompson, who in 1980 became the first Native Hawaiian in modern times to navigate a canoe thousands of miles in the old way. When Mau died in 2010, the revival he had started had spread across the Pacific.

How wayfinding works

A wayfinder holds a 'star compass' in their head: a circle of points on the horizon where particular stars rise and set. As one star climbs too high to use, another rises in the same place. Through the night the navigator steers by a chain of stars, like a relay.

By day there are the swells, long waves made by distant weather, which keep their direction for days. A trained navigator can feel two or three different swells crossing under the hull and keep the canoe at the same angle to them. Close to land there are birds: some seabirds fish at sea by day and fly back to land at dusk, so their evening flight points to an island beyond the horizon. Cloud colour and the shape of waves bending round an island give more clues.

None of this is guesswork. It is a science learned over years, kept in memory and passed from teacher to student. Between 2014 and 2017 Hōkūleʻa sailed around the world on a voyage called Mālama Honua, 'to care for the Earth', covering about 47,000 nautical miles and visiting 85 ports in 26 countries.

Guided, not just clever

Here is where Moana opens a door. In the film, the ocean itself chooses Moana, and the story is full of Polynesian gods and spirits, told from inside that tradition. We do not borrow them or fold them into anyone else's faith. But the film and the canoe both point to something all three Abrahamic faiths talk about: the world is laid out so that it can be read, and the stars are there partly so that people can find their way.

The Qur'an names God al-Hādī, the Guide, and it describes guidance on several levels. There is the guidance written into creation, so that each thing knows its way: 'He said: Our Lord is He Who gave unto everything its nature, then guided it aright.' (20:50, Pickthall). There are the stars, given 'And He it is Who hath set for you the stars that ye may guide your course by them amid the darkness of the land and the sea. We have detailed Our revelations for a people who have knowledge.' (6:97, Pickthall). And there is the deepest guidance, to the straight path, which Muslims ask for in every prayer. A navigator learns to read the first two. The third, the faiths say, is a gift you ask for.

The Names this touches

Al-Hādī: The Guide, who gave each thing its form and then guided it (20:50).

Ar-Rashīd: The Guide to the right course, who leads without leading astray.

NamesThe Guideal-Hādī

NamesThe Guide to the right pathar-Rashīd

What each faith says

Go deeper

• Polynesian Voyaging Society: Hōkūleʻa · organisation
• The 1976 voyage to Tahiti (PVS archive) · archive
• Mau Piailug (encyclopaedia entry) · article
• Qur'an 6:97 with translations · scripture
• Psalm 139 (JPS 1917) · scripture
• John 8 (Bible Gateway, WEB) · scripture
• Berakhot 29b, the Traveller’s Prayer (Sefaria) · scripture