Work from home - Week 4 - (Oscar and Nate DNA adventure)

 Made in Taiwan

Oscar and Nathan’s excellent adventure

The programme traces the tradition made by Oscar and Nate to find where their ancestors migrated from.  Nate is from New Zealand and Oscar is from Samoa .  Oscar and Nate used DNA to show who their ancestors were who journeyed across the Pacific. Scientists at Oxford University use genes to identify a person’s clan mother and father.  The Polynesians who navigated their way across the Pacific used Stars to navigate by; Oscar and Nate are using their DNAto go backwards in time. 

Nate’s family are from Mahia on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island and he went back there to open the results from the DNA test, where they were shared onto the marae.  According to the scientists, Nate’s clan mother was from East Eurasia and America (not from England as she thought).  Nate’s father is Maori.  

The next stop on their journey was 3000 km away in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.  According to the scientists who study DNA, three-quarters of Maori and Cook Islanders trace the same ancestry.  Oscar and Nate went to the spot from where, according to local, Sacred waka like the takitimu set out to New Zealand some 700 years ago.  The languages between the two cultures are very similar and Oscar says that it is just like having an older brother. Their “origin” stories – how they explain where they came from - are very similar too.  

Arriving in Samoa it was Oscar’s turn to open his envelope revealing his DNA results.  His family appeared nervous, unsure of what the science would show.  Samoans can Pacific their ancestry back 12,000 years.   

On the next leg of their journey the pair arrived in Vanuatu and found another means of tracing the routes of their migration:resemblances.  The Lapita peoples journeyed across the Pacific thousands of years ago, leaving behind the pottery which they made.  The pottery showed that the lapita people transferred their tattooing skills to pottery.  Carbon dating allows scientists to accurately date when the pottery was made.  An archaeological dig showed that skeletons were well preserved in their graves.  For Oscar and Nate, the dig seemed tapu (welcomed) but for the people of Vanuatu excavating the graves is a way of understanding their history.

The last stage in their journey took them to Taiwan.  Again they were amazed at how similar they looked in appearance to the indigenous coastal people of Taiwan, like Niwa who showed them around.  In a museum dedicated to pre-history, Oscar and Nate could see the patterns between the people, for examples in the facial moku.  Even some of the words used were similar.  The yam, taro and coconut all came from here and were taken across the Pacific by early voyagers.  Taiwan was the beginning of their journey story.

patterns pottery facial sacred

east genes taro Pacific

DNA journey similar England

excavating Carbon tattooing stage

stars resemblances migrated Samoa

New Zealand Polynesians Samoa tradition indigenous marae nervous museum

Trace Rarotonga welcomed share