Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Maori Canoe

Canoes of Hawaiian Isles

Canoes of Hawaiian Isles

Here again both forms of the Polynesian canoe were employed— the double canoe, and the single canoe furnished with an out-rigger. Dr. Samwell, Surgeon of the "Discovery" during Cook's third voyage, wrote as follows: "Of canoes they have two sorts, the single and the double. They are made exactly alike, but those that form the double canoe are much larger than any single one, which in general are from five to seven or eight yards long, and will hold from four to ten people. The bottom of the canoe is made out of one piece of wood hollowed, which they often dye black. On this they rise the sides with thin white boards, which they bring page 327together about two feet from the head and stern, where they end in a point turned up a little. They have outriggers on the larboard side. They are made of three pieces of wood, one large, which serves to balance the canoe, and two bent and fastened to the canoe. The paddles are broad, and made of light wood, in the shape of a spade. The double canoe consists of two large ones joined together Fig. 157b Drawing of a New Zealand War-canoe made by Tui, who was in England in 1818. Sketch by Miss E. Richardson by cross-pieces of wood, forming an arch between them, on which a platform is erected, where the chiefs generally sit, and where they carry their hogs and other articles of trade. On one of these cross-pieces, near the middle of the canoe, the mast rests, and is secured by shrouds and stays. One end of the yard rests against the foot of the mast, and, taking a sweep, forms an arch of a circle, the upper end of which is as high as the masthead. The sail is made of strong matting sewed together, and is joined to the mast and the yard, and at the upper end forms a half-moon, which gives their canoes, when under sail, a very singular appearance. They generally have a bunch of black feathers at the mast-head, and at the end of the yard a kind of pendant flying, made of cloth. In the stern of their canoes they carry small wooden images, which they call etee [Maori, he tiki—an image]. Some of the double canoes are twenty yards long … and the largest will hold … about sixty or seventy men."

Like most travellers' accounts, the above gives us some idea of the general appearance of the canoes of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Isles, but furnishes little detail as to their construction—a very common fault.

page 328

Ledyard, who was in the "Resolution" when Cook was slain by the Hawaiians, says of the assembly of natives, "They had assembled from the interior and the coast. Three thousand canoes were counted in the bay, filled with men, women and children, to the number of at least fifteen thousand, besides others that were swimming and sustaining themselves on floats in the water."

Fig. 158 Double Canoe of Hawaiian Isles, showing Crab-claw Sail. From a plate in Cook's Voyages. Sketch by Miss E. Richardson

La Perouse states that at one part of the coast of Maui, in the Hawaiian Group, one hundred and fifty canoes came off to his vessel.

Of the ordinary canoes of the Hawaiian Isles La Perouse wrote as follows: "These canoes had outriggers; each held from three to five men. The common size might be about twenty-four feet in length, only one foot in breadth, and very near the same in depth. We weighed one of them of these dimensions, which did not exceed fifty pounds weight. It is with these ticklish vessels that the inhabitants of these islands make runs of sixty leagues, and traverse channels that are twenty leagues wide."

Arago writes as follows of Hawaiian canoes in his account of Freycinet's voyage (1817-20): "Our cabinetmakers do not polish the most costly furniture better, and without planes or any of the tools employed by our workmen those of Hawaii are capable of competing with the best artisans of Europe. The inside of the bottom page 329of their boats, as far as the thwarts, is painted black, and polished till it becomes very bright…. The largest canoe was a single one, seventy-two feet long, and three in its greatest breadth. The threads with which the planks were sewed together, and with which the other parts of the canoes and their outriggers were connected, were twisted and fastened with wonderful skill. The other canoes under the sheds were neither less elegant not less carefully finished, but the largest was not above fifty feet long."

Of the canoes of the Sandwich Isles [Hawaiian Isles] Ellis says: "The canoes of the Sandwich Islands appear eminently calculated for swiftness, being low, narrow, generally light, and drawing but little water. A canoe is always made out of a single tree: some of them are upward of seventy feet long, one or two feet wide, and sometimes more than three feet deep, though in length they seldom exceed fifty feet. The body of the canoe is generally covered with a black paint…. On the upper edge of the canoe is sewed, in a remarkably neat manner, a small strip of hard white wood, from six to eight inches in width, according to the size and length of the canoe. These strips meet and close over the top at both stem and stern…. The mast generally has a notch cut at the lower end, and is placed on one of the cross-pieces to which it is tied…. Neither the canoes nor paddles are carved like those of many islands in the Pacific."

In describing a trip made in a double canoe at the Sandwich Isles, Ellis says: "We found our double canoe very convenient, for it had a. pora, or stage, raised in the middle, which provided a comfortable seat, and also kept our packages above the spray of the sea. The pora is formed by tying slight poles to the iako [=iato—Maori kiato], or cross-pieces that connect the two canoes together. The cross-pieces are not straight, but bent like a bow, and form an arch between the two canoes, which raises the pora, or stage, at least two feet higher than the sides of the canoe."

Dr. Emerson, of Honolulu, has remarked: "The making of a canoe, from the first act of selecting a tree in the wilderness to its final consecrating and launching when fully rigged, was in Hawaii, at all times, and at every step, under the watchful eye of the kahuna [Maori tohunga—expert], whose duty it was to see that no pains or expense were spared, no ceremony omitted, to propitiate the favour of the gods who had the power, if so disposed, to bring good luck to the wa'a [Maori waka] and all who might sail in it.

In Volume 1 of Occasional Papers of the Bishop Museum of Honolulu is an instructive article on "The Mat Sails of the Pacific," by Mr. John F. G. Stokes. It gives some interesting information page 330concerning the manufacture of canoe-sails from pandanus-leaves, from the native name of which the Maori derived one of his names for a sail, wham. He mentions the common custom of making such sails in several or many pieces, which pieces would be afterwards fastened together. These were plaited as is a Maori floor-mat, not laced together as was the raupo sail already described. "The Hawaiian sail was made in strips, but that of Tahiti seems to have been composed of several large square mats sewn together…. The Hawaiian sail was shaped somewhat like that of the Society Islands, but the top of the sprit was on a level with the masthead, near which it was held by a cord."

The following notes are from the Bishop Museum Handbook, Part I, 1915: "Hawaiian canoes were cut from single logs, usually of koa, long and narrow, without keel, built up with side boards of breadfruit wood, and partly covered at each end, but especially at the bow. A very necessary part of the canoe was the ama, or outrigger, in the best canoes made of wiliwili wood (Erythrina monosperma), connected with the moo, or gunwale, by two curved sticks, iako, generally of hau wood (Paritium tiliaceum). Triangular sails of matting were attached to a short movable mast, kia. As protection from water and weather, canoes were generally painted, the hull black, the moo yellow, and when not in actual use were drawn ashore. Canoes varied greatly in size, from that capable of carrying one man to the gigantic war-canoes carrying fifty or more; the latter were generally made of pine drifted from the American coast…. Paddles are usually of koa, rather heavy, and tipped on one face with a slight projection called io, or upe. This io was not always present. The average length of a paddle was five and a half feet…. While the steering-paddles were much larger than these, the paddles used by women was much smaller…. When another canoe was substituted for the ama, a raised platform was built over the iako [Maori kiato], and a very steady craft resulted. All parts of a canoe were bound together with sennit or aha [Maori kaha, a cord]…. Often the pious fishermen placed at the bow a two-headed god…. The anchor was either a perforated stone, or a round stone or several smaller ones enclosed in a net."

The dimensions of a fishing-canoe in the above museum are given as follows: Length, 35½ ft; depth, outside 27 in., inside 23½ in.; width inside, 17½ in.; centre of canoe to centre of outrigger, 10½ ft.

Fornander tells us that, in olden times, large double canoes carrying eighty men were not uncommon. An old wrecked canoe on the coast of Hawaii was 108 ft. in length, and a certain canoe of Oahu, of the eighteenth century, carried from 120 to 140 men. In page 331olden times the Hawaiians made long voyages to the south and west. Vancouver saw here a canoe 61 ft. in length that had been fashioned from a drift log of American pine.