Candles lined the road from the airport in Palau to welcome home Grand Master Navigator Sesario Sewralur.
He was the son of Mau Piailug from Satawal in the Federated States of Micronesia, who is credited with keeping alive traditional knowledge of voyaging by the stars and seas alive.
The Polynesian Voyaging Society posted an online tribute to Sesario in early July. Sewralur died in Taiwan on July 10 after completing a voyage from Micronesia to Okinawa and Taiwan.
To learn more about the legacy that Sewralur leaves behind, HPR spoke with Nainoa Thompson, CEO of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, and Chamorro navigator Ron Acfalle.
Acfalle, like Thompson, is dedicated to keeping proud pacific seafaring traditions from going extinct, and Thompson learned the skills to navigate directly alongside Sewralur up until they became two of the first graduates of a Pwo ceremony comprising both Hawaiians and Micronesians.
Interview Highlights
On Sewralur’s passing
NAINOA THOMPSON: It was not expected. … He just got through completing a voyage from Palau to Taiwan to Okinawa, and then was on his way to Guam. But there was that big typhoon that came through the area, so he went back to Palau, but that's a long voyage. It's thousands of miles, and so he was doing exactly what his father was. In order to teach navigation, you have to sail, and you have to go deep. You have to go far. And so the youngest of the sons, and to me, the one that was really chosen by Mau to carry the light forward.
Sesario would be the youngest to ever sail the road Kealaikahiki between Hawaiʻi and Tahiti. He was 16, and he was on the escort. Mau intentionally brought him with him. Mau kept Sesario right next to his side when he sailed with us, and so he was the chosen one for sure. And he kept his promises to his father. He was going deep sea up until the very end, and he was training and teaching many. On one hand, you're going to consider this a loss powerfully. But society, we have to thank him for what he's done to keep what was so important for his father alive. And the future of society is in its students, those that will carry on. So yes, we are very sad. Yes, we're in mourning, but we have to always remember that he kept that alive.
On carrying on the legacy of Mau Piailug through the Pwo ceremony
RON ACFALLE: Yeah, I was surprised because when I got back from the Palau … I asked (Mau), because somebody had mentioned that they're going to be doing a Pwo ceremony, first time to ever be done here in Guam, and I asked him, "What does it take to become a Pwo?" And he just said it was very straightforward. He says, "Anybody can learn star navigation, and anybody can build a canoe, but not anybody can put a community together." He says, "If you can put a community together, then you have established that most powerful part of being a Pwo."
THOMPSON: My understanding of Pwo, it's a very sacred ceremony, but it really is in English would be a graduation. … In his mind, that's where the real learning started. Because now you're in command of a deep-sea voyager group. Now you are carrying the legacy forward. You are there to stop extinction from generation to generation … And so you are given this not so much acknowledgment, but authority and responsibility, kuleana, to carry on voyaging. … So Mau viewed this as a way to keep the navigation, and he would say, "If there are no navigators, no more, there will be no more people." So he understood what was at risk, and so even though I don't believe that I'm qualified, all he wanted us to do was to teach, and that was the main thing: is to keep the teaching alive. And in the end, you know, he told me that in the end, that Pwo is the light, and and the light is love.
On preserving the practice of traditional navigation across the Pacific
THOMPSON: The fact that Mau graduated Micronesians with those from Hawaiʻi was telling us we need to know each other. We need to be, and he said this, "You are now brothers, and you are in the family of Weriyeng School, and you must support each other. You must take care of each other, and always stay loyal to each other in the code of navigation." And that was so that Mau was building bridges between Pacific Islanders.
ACFALLE: So, I think for us here, we just keep moving on. The younger generations have moved out of the small islands and are now all throughout these areas in Guam, Saipan, or even mainland. Most of them, most navigators, are pretty much gone in the smaller islands. So everyone's pretty much in this area. But yeah, maybe we just need to come together, maybe one day, and hold something here in Guam with Polynesians and Micronesians, and then just have a powwow, and then just sit down and try to make sure that we go forward and we go forward together.
This story aired on The Conversation on July 22, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
