The Great Canoes in the Sky

Martin Paviour-Smith is a lecturer in linguistics at Massey University, New Zealand, with a speciality in language and culture in the South Pacific. He has worked and lived with indigenous peoples of the region describing the language and collecting stories and traditions from various cultures. He has a longstanding interest in the stars, particularly in what cultures do with their knowledge of the sky above them. He has published widely in the fields of socio- and applied linguisitics, and in cultural studies.

Stephen Chadwick lectures in astronomy and the philosophy of science at Massey University, New Zealand. He is also an astro-photographer and in 2013 co-authored the Springer-published book Imaging the Southern Sky, which contained over 150 of his astronomical images. His images have also appeared in scholarly scientific journals worldwide (including Keele University's Magellanic Clouds Newsletter and the Journal of the RASNZ) as well as popular astronomy magazines suchas Sky & Telescope, Astronomy, the BBC's Sky at Night magazine, Astronomy Now, and The Observatory. They have also appeared on the BBC and NZ television, as well as in national and international newspapers.