Marshall Islands stick chart

Lore & Background

Stick charts were made from the midribs of coconut fronds tied together to form an open framework. Island locations were represented by shells tied to the framework or by lashed junctions of sticks. Threads represented prevailing ocean surface wave-crests and their directions as they approached islands and met other wave-crests. Individual charts varied so much in form and interpretation that only the navigator who made the chart could fully interpret and use it. The charts were studied and memorized before a voyage and were not consulted during the trip, unlike traditional maps. Navigators used their senses and memory, crouching or lying prone in the canoe to feel how it was pitched and rolled by underlying swells.

The Marshallese recognized four main ocean swells: rilib, kaelib, bungdockerik, and bundockeing. Rilib swells, the strongest, were generated by northeast trade winds and considered to come from the east. Kaelib swells were weaker and detectable only by knowledgeable persons. Bungdockerik swells arose in the southwest and were often as strong as rilib in southern islands. Bundockeing swells were the weakest, mainly felt in northern islands. Navigators focused on refraction of swells as they contacted undersea slopes and bending around islands as they interacted with swells from opposite directions.

Stick charts fell into three categories: mattang (abstract, used for instruction), meddo (showed actual islands, swell directions, and detection distances for a section of one island chain), and rebbelib (similar to meddo but included all or most of one or both chains). Knowledge of making the charts was held only by select rulers and passed from father to son. For others to benefit, fifteen or more canoes sailed together with a leader pilot skilled in chart use. The system was revealed in a public notice in 1862 by a resident missionary and comprehensively described in the 1890s by Captain Winkler of the Imperial German Navy.

Reader's Guide

The stick charts are a significant contribution to the history of cartography because they represent a system of mapping ocean swells, which was never before accomplished. They also use different materials from those common in other parts of the world. They are an indication that ancient maps may have looked very different, and encoded different features from the earth, from the maps that we use today. The charts, unlike traditional maps, were studied and memorized prior to a voyage and were not consulted during a trip, as compared to traditional navigation techniques where consultation of a map is frequent and points and courses are plotted out both before and during navigation. Marshallese navigators used their senses and memory to guide them on voyages by crouching down or lying prone in the canoe to feel how the canoe was being pitched and rolled by underlying swells. The use of stick charts ended after World War II, driven in part by new electronic technologies, reduction in canoe travel between islands, and repeated nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll and other islands, which led to widespread destruction by the US government of Marshall Island culture and stability.

Did You Know?

• Stick charts were made from the midribs of coconut fronds tied together to form an open framework.
• Only the navigator who made a stick chart could fully interpret and use it.
• The Marshallese recognized four main ocean swells: rilib, kaelib, bungdockerik, and bundockeing.
• The use of stick charts declined after World War II, primarily due to the introduction of Western navigation methods and displacement of traditional practices.