Like the “male essence,” the mattang, an early Polynesian navigational
tool made of sticks in the shape of a four-armed cross, is practical, structured, linear, logical and analytical. Young seagoing men learned from their elders how to hold it near the water at the prow of the boat to match wave patterns and determine where major islands lay and where reef barriers broke the ocean’s surface. Mattang energy can often point the community to the desired shore, and safely guide them there. Red: “yang” energy. Our longest color-wave length and slowest vibration, it grounds us.