Through analyzing genomes from present-day peoples, we can do incredible things like determine the approximate number of wa‘a (voyaging canoes) that arrived when my ancestors landed on the island of Hawaii or even reconstruct the genomes of some of the legendary chiefs and navigators that discovered the islands of the Pacific.
And beyond these scientific and historical discoveries, genomics research can also help us understand and rectify the injustices of the past.
Genomes from modern Pacific Islanders have enabled us to reconstruct precise timings, paths and branching patterns, or bifurcations, of these ancient voyages, giving a refined understanding of the order in which many archipelagoes in the Pacific were settled.
By working collaboratively with communities, our approach has directly challenged colonial science’s legacy of taking artifacts and genetic materials without consent. Similar tools to the new genomics have no doubt been misused in the past to justify racist and social Darwinist ends.
Yet by using genetic data graciously provided by multiple communities across the Pacific, and by allowing them to shape research priorities, my colleagues and I have been able to “I ka wā mamua, ka wā ma hope,” or “walk backward into the future.”
