Back to All Events

Seeking Samoa: A Taupou’s Voyage Home

Tuloutele Celeste Manuia Ha’o

6:30pm-8:30pm | Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Location: Natural History Museum of Utah, 301 Wakara Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108

Journey with Tuloutele Celeste Manuia Haʻo as she shares an ancestral and personal voyage across ocean and identity—weaving together wayfinding, cultural revitalization, and the sacred responsibilities of a taupou living in diaspora into a powerful story of return, resilience, and renewal.

Tuloutele Celeste Manuia Haʻo is a Hawaiian-Sāmoan wayfinder, educator, designer, and storyteller from Hilo, Hawaiʻi. She trained under the late Pwo Navigator Kālepa Baybayan and co-navigated Hōkūleʻa on a historical journey that fulfilled her grandfather’s prophecy—returning to their village of Faleapuna, Sāmoa, “by way of sea and stars.”

Free museum admission for participants until 9:00pm.

Seating at this venue is limited, RSVP is required.

MEET THE KEYNOTE

Tuloutele Celeste Manuia Haʻo

A Hawaiian-Sāmoan wayfinder, educator, designer, and storyteller from Hilo, Hawaiʻi, Tuloutele Celeste trained under the late Pwo Navigator Kālepa Baybayan and co-navigated Hōkūleʻa on a historic journey that fulfilled her grandfather’s prophecy—returning to their village of Faleapuna, Sāmoa, “by way of sea and stars.”

At 17, Celeste was named Tuloutele, the Taupou of Faleapuna. Instead of remaining in the village, her grandfather directed her to return to Hawaiʻi, learn all she could, and one day teach their people. That calling guides her work today—blending ancestral intelligence with bold innovation to design learning experiences that reconnect ʻōiwi communities with identity, language, and place.

E momoli atu ai le agaga fa’afetai i ‘āiga, uō, ma pa’aga sa lagolagoina mālosi le tātou fa’amoemoe.

We express our heartfelt gratitude to our families, friends, colleagues and sponsors for their role in making our first Wayfinding Week a success.

Mālō lava le agalelei ma le a’ao foa’i.

Previous
Previous
May 27

Voyaging by Land and Sea: Utah Roots and Oceanic Routes

Next
Next
May 29

An Evening Beneath Ancestral Skies: Tōloa Rising at Clark Planetarium