Hokule’a 2007 Japan Voyage Crewmember Duke Kaneko had the christening ceremony of the OC-6 for his paddling o’hana yesterday. Their OC-6 christened “Pili Aloha” and blessed by Kumu Hula Tony Tauvela.
Duke boarded Hokule’a from Kumamoto to Fukuoka under captain Chad Baybayan and managed the welcome ceremony in Nagasaki.
After the Hokule’a voyage, Duke started his new project “Ocean Legend” to expand the spirit of the voyaging o’hana. Duke and his family live in Shonan area of Kanagawa prefecture and paddle his outrigger canoe in Sagami Gulf every day. And there is the oldest evidence of the seagoing culture of Homo Sapience back to 18000 B.C. in the gulf. The ancestors of Shonan area paddled their dugout boat to Izu-Oshima, Kozu Shima and Miyake Jima. Then the people of Jomon period paddled at least 100km of the open ocean across the Kuroshio Current to Hachijo-Jima 3500 B.C. These ancestors apparently are the ocean legend of Nippon Archipelago. But their aretalogy are forgotten.
Duke aims to revive that seagoing culture of Sagami Gulf and Izu Islands, by uniting the islands with his OC-6. Duke had been to Hachijo-Jima and Ogasawara last summer and spread his o’hana in the islands by talking the stories of Polynesian great paddlers and voyaging tradition.
http://fuyuto.asablo.jp/blog/2009/10/06/4617983
http://fuyuto.asablo.jp/blog/2009/10/07/4619126
Duke and his o’hana will depart Wada beach of Misaki (Last stop of Hokule’a before the canoe arrived Yokohama in 2007) to Hachijo-Jima this summer.
OCEAN LEGEND website (English)
http://oceanlegend.net/english.html
