The article is a summary, and doesn't go into the details, but navigation was also spiritual practice to the original Polynesian navigators. Skills at modern na

The article is a summary, and doesn't go into the details, but navigation was also spiritual practice to the original Polynesian navigators. Skills at modern navigation, which if poor simply result in an emergency beacon to Inmarsat and a pickup by the next passing freighter cannot be compared to those needed by the navigator of a Polynesian ocean-going colonization canoe - whose passengers, most likely part of the same family group, would certainly all die along with the navigator if he failed.