A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
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star path
A star path is the sequence of stars used one after another to hold a single course through a night. Each rises at the same point on the horizon, is steered by while it is low, and is handed over to the next as it climbs out of usefulness. A navigator holds a list for every route he sails, so the passage between two islands is remembered as an ordered series of stars rather than as a compass bearing.
Etymology
The English term describes the practice; the traditions concerned have their own names for each sequence, and the sequence is usually memorized as a chant. Learning a route means learning its star path in both directions, since the return uses different stars entirely.
Notes
The number of paths a navigator holds is substantial, since every pair of islands needs one and the list has to account for the season. Mau Piailug of Satawal, who navigated Hōkūle’a from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1976 without instruments, held the system for a large area of the Pacific and later taught it outside his own island for the first time, which is a large part of the reason the tradition survived.