The inhabitants of the Marshall Islands are skilled sailors, able to traverse vast distances in large outrigger canoes. This is an example of the sailing charts that once aided their voyages. Bent sticks indicated wave formations, while shells referred to the location of islands. The unique design of these functional objects has attracted the attention of museums and collectors, who appreciate them for their formal qualities. In 1961 Governor Carlton Skinner and Solange Skinner received this chart as an official present from the government of the Marshall Islands, then under U.S. administration as the eastern most part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

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