KEY POINTS:
A rare Polynesian canoe became the first of an estimated five million items to be moved back to the Auckland Museum yesterday from warehouse storage.
The 7m Tikopean canoe was given to the museum in 1953 by Anki Taumako, one of four paramount chiefs in the Solomon Islands, but it has never been on public display.
That seclusion ends on December 9 when the museum opens a $100 million upgrade and extension featuring the canoe in the Vaka Moana exhibition, which tells the story of the exploration and population of the Pacific.
The canoe is one of four left in the world and museum staff said it derived from the seagoing canoes Polynesian explorers used.
The Tikopean canoe and two others, a double canoe from the Cook Islands, a bonito fishing canoe from the Solomons and more than 130 artefacts, would be on display until April before beginning a four-year world tour.
The museum's curator of ethnology, Roger Neich, said the early Pacific sailors had navigational skill never seen by other explorers, including Captain Cook.
Cook was known to be an exceptional navigator but Mr Neich said he had nothing on the Pacific explorers.
"These people beat him by about 3000 years.
"All the navigation was done in their minds, no navigation instruments. They were pioneers. The Austronesians, who were the earlier people who became the Polynesians, were doing ocean voyages while Europeans were just sneaking around the coast of the Mediterranean."
- NZPA
