To expand search, see Oceania. Laterally related topics: Indo-Malay Archipelago, The Philippines, New Zealand, The Malekula of Vanuatu, New Guinea, The Hawaiians, New Ireland, Kiribati (The Gilbert Islands), The Caroline Islands, Australia, The New Hebrides, and Polynesia.
The Mathematics and the Liberal Arts pages are intended to be a resource for student research projects and for teachers interested in using the history of mathematics in their courses. Many pages focus on ethnomathematics and in the connections between mathematics and other disciplines. The notes in these pages are intended as much to evoke ideas as to indicate what the books and articles are about. They are not intended as reviews. However, some items have been reviewed in Mathematical Reviews, published by The American Mathematical Society. When the mathematical review (MR) number and reviewer are known to the author of these pages, they are given as part of the bibliographic citation. Subscribing institutions can access the more recent MR reviews online through MathSciNet.
Ascher, Marcia. Models and maps from the Marshall Islands: a case in ethnomathematics. Historia Math. 22 (1995), no. 4, 347--370. SC: 01A07 (01A13), MR: 1 364 080.
The Marshall islanders used their understanding of swell interaction to navigate, rather than the astronomical methods more familiar to us. These methods had the advantage of being usable when the sky was not visible. In fact, the author notes "one navigator recounted that an early part of his training was begin made to float in water at various places in order to learn how to feel what would later be shown and explained to him." Ascher explains how wave refraction and reflection explain the swell interactions, and how the Marshall islands map called the mattang was used to explain these interaction. She explains how the rebbelith and meddo maps (large and smaller scale) are not just literal descriptions of distances, but are also abstract representations of some of the same principles. Closely related topics: Navigation and Cartography.