Sir Hek Busby began his career building bridges in Northland, before becoming a master waka builder at age 50. A new documentary, premiering tonight in Wellington as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival, tells his story.
Sir Hekenukumai 'Hek' Busby. Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
"If it wasn't for the waka, we wouldn't be here today."
These are the words of Sir Hekenukumai 'Hek' Busby, who began his career building more than 200 bridges, before quitting at age 50 to follow his true passion of waka building and traditional Māori navigation.
Whetu Marama - Bright Star, a co-production by Toby Mills and Aileen O'Sullivan, follows Sir Hek's journey across the vast Pacific using star navigation and his significance for Māori in "rekindling their wayfinding DNA".
Toby Mills joined Sunday Morning to discuss the documentary which premieres tonight in Wellington as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival, and how Busby continued building (metaphorical) bridges throughout Oceania once his engineering days were over.
'It's the waka that is central to Polynesian culture' - Toby Mills
Having worked with Sir Hek for 15 years, Mills has accumulated a huge amount of archival footage - both from his own filming and from others around the world who have documented his journey.
"That's one of the strengths of the film, the amount of archive we managed to find, in Hawaii, in Tahiti, and all round Aotearoa," Mills says.
Celestial navigation by waka was once thought lost to the ages, but a renaissance in the 70s and 80s brought the knowledge back to light.
"Well it was gone, we'd lost that for like 600 years," Mills says. "And it wasn't until an extraordinary group of people came together and wanted to reclaim that knowledge."
This extraordinary group of people consisted of Sir Hek, Nainoa Thompson from Hawaii and Papa Mau Piailug, a Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian island of Satawal.
"It was those three really who, with their energy and their knowledge, came together to start this incredible renaissance."
It was to be a collaboration encompassing the Pacific and its central object - the waka - which led to epic voyages from Hawaii to Tahiti to Aotearoa, to Rarotonga and all the way to Rapanui.
Before he died in 2019, Sir Hek built 26 traditional waka, including the double-hulled Te Aurere, which sailed over 30,000 nautical miles in the Pacific.
"I've always wondered if people would understand that that's the object, the central object for us as Polynesians is the waka," Mills says.
"Because that enabled us to migrate through the Pacific and inhabit new lands. You'd think about a population on some of the smaller islands, you would get to population density and have to really think about moving on. You go out fishing, you find another island, and then you go there and you set up a base there.
"But it's the waka that is central to Polynesian culture, that's the point we're trying to get across in the film."
Mills says the lore that surrounds the legendary waka journeys of the past can help us find our place in the world, especially during a global pandemic.
"I think it's really given us an opportunity to sit down and really look at ourselves and where our place is on this planet Earth," he says.
"I think that's where the power of these navigators and all of the people involved in this sort of renaissance, that's where their heart is. You know they're really connected to the elements, to the winds, to the sea, to the birds, to the ocean currents.
"It's really an extraordinary connection that I think most of the planet has lost. We get a chance to reflect back on it and maybe, hopefully, look towards our inner compass for some guidance as well."
As well as carving waka, Sir Hek also carved an important future for Māori, as a bridge-builder, both physically and metaphorically.
"His passion was engineering, I mean he was a bridge-builder, he built 200 bridges in Northland," Mills says.
"Metaphorically he became this other bridge-builder as well, a bridge-builder of Oceania. He connected us back to the other islands of Polynesia … it must have been in his DNA."