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The Maori Canoe

[argument and introduction]

page 65

Contents

Evolution of built-up vessels. Tree-felling. Timbers used. Suitable trees reserved. Special trees named. Superstitions and ritual pertaining to tree-felling. Curious device for tree-felling. Fire employed in tree-felling. The dubbing process. Log-rolling apparatus. Tapu of work and workers. Hauling canoe from forest. Hauling-songs. The waka haumi. Fitting up canoe. Joining hull sections. The top-strakes. Different modes of lashing top-strakes in Polynesia. Thwarts. Splitting-wedges. The tauihu, or carved prow. The taurapa, or carved stern-piece. Floorgrating. Canoe-painting. Launching of canoe. Ritual and human sacrifice. Large-sized canoes.

In describing the various parts of a Maori canoe of the superior type, the use of many native names of parts might somewhat confuse the reader should any desultory description be given. It is therefore proposed, in order to make the description clearer, to construct a canoe for ourselves, and describe all processes of manufacture from the felling of the tree in the forest to the launching of the completed vessel. This method, in conjunction with the diagrams and other illustrations, will, it is hoped, present a fair picture of the Maori canoe.

Acting on the old aphorism that if a thing is worth doing it is worth doing well, it is proposed to so construct a waka taua, or war-canoe, as an illustration. By selecting this type we shall be enabled to examine all fittings formerly employed, some of which were not used in connection with inferior vessels. A description of the waka tiwai, or plain dugout, would afford no illustration of a built-up craft, or of methods of ornamentation.

Colonel Lane Fox traces the evolution of the built-up vessel from the plain dugout, to which, as time passed, a top-strake was added to give greater height. These were lashed on, and, later, their number increased. As they did so the solid hull diminished in size until it merely represented a keel on which the vessel was built up. Ribs, knees, and framework were added, but the early form of ribs was introduced after the boat was built up, and not set up at first as a framework on which to construct the vessel, as with our modern vessels.

page 66

The above-named writer thus describes a process of evolution which is probably fairly correct, though local surroundings have undoubtedly been the cause of modifications and even retrogression in the art of boat-building. Thus the ancestors of the Moriori folk went from New Zealand to the Chatham Isles in a very fine type of ocean-going canoe, but when visited by Lieutenant Broughton in 1791 they were using extremely rude craft made of the flower-stalks of Phormium, stalks of bracken-fern and seaweed, containing but few pieces of timber. This change was brought about by the lack of suitable timber for canoe-making. Also, we know that Tahitian canoes were built up by securing successive planks to a small dug-out hull; but the Tahitians who settled in New Zealand discarded this form and employed big, deep dugouts with but a single top-strake. Doubtless this change was caused by the finding of such large timber in the forests of these isles.

We shall find in our Maori canoe the first crude form from which the essential ribs of our boats were derived, but introduced after the completion of the hull, and in nowise tending to strengthen it.

The practice of lashing parts of a canoe or boat together obtained not only throughout the Pacific, but also in Siam, Burmah, Madras the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea, Africa, Tierra del Fuego, and Finland. Lashing preceded trenails.

Banks remarks that the Tahitians worked at canoe-making with incredible cleverness, "although their tools were as bad as possible."

Maning, a very early settler, who knew the Maori as few have known him, wrote: "With rude and blunt stones they felled the giant kauri, toughest of pines; and from it, in process of time, at an expense of labour, perseverance, and ingenuity perfectly astounding to those who know what it really was, produced, carved, painted and inlaid—a masterpiece of art and an object of beauty—the war-canoe, capable of carrying a hundred men on a distant expedition, through the boisterous seas surrounding their island."

Polack, another early sojourner in the North Island, stated the "The natives of the East Cape are noted for their abilities in the New Zealand fine arts; the natives of Hawke's Bay for their ability in making large canoes."

The Rev. Mr. Yate, yet another very early writer, wrote as follows:—

The canoes of New-Zealanders were formerly procured only by immense labour, on account of the utter absence of all edge tools, except their blunt-edged axes made of a kind of marble or jasper. When a man required a canoe he had to go to the wood and fell his tree with a small stone page 67hatchet, which preparatory work generally occupied four or five men for two months; after this was accomplished, it had to be shaped into the form of a canoe, which could only be done with great labour. The hollowing, however, was the most tedious task; part would be burnt out, and part would be chipped out with axes; both with wearisome processes, and requiring much patience. After the vessel was launched, much remained to be done to it; if intended for a war-canoe, two more trees had to be felled, to cut out two planks for bulwarks; and these, when cut, had to be shaped, and fitted on, and then bored with a small pointed stone, for the shreds of flax to be passed through with which it was to be tied or served to the hull of the vessel. This accomplished, an elaborately carved stem and stern-post had to be made, and the whole canoe painted inside and outside with red, and one streak of black over the band which secures the side-boards, or what may be called the gunwale of the vessel: along this band is always laid a number of the gannet's most beautiful white feathers; and on the image placed at the nose of the canoe is fixed a large wig of feathers of the kaka, or New Zealand parrot.

These canoes will sometimes contain from eighty to a hundred men: they are rowed with short paddles, a man sitting on each side upon a grating raised about half-way from the bottom. They are tolerably safe, even in a stiff breeze; but, from their great length, they always go through the trough of the sea, and not over the waves. If they went over, poised on the wave underneath the middle, the back of the vessel would, in all probability, be broken. Many have been lost at sea through the ignorance or obstinacy of steersmen… Upon any grand expedition they are prepared with the greatest nicety and caution, and every ornament that can be crowded upon them without detriment is lavishly employed… A fleet of a hundred New Zealand vessels is a dreadful sight, inspiring, from the shouts of the warriors whilst paddling along, the utmost terror in the minds of those whom they are about to attack. None can view unmoved a hundred of these canoes in action… I far prefer the New Zealand to the Friendly Island canoes: the latter having two lashed together, are far too unwieldy; and, when at sea, are unmanageable. They are decked; have houses erected upon them; and carry between three or four hundred people, besides provisions for this number for several days at sea. I think I have heard them say that, with their means, it requires sixty men to raise the mast, when they wish to set sail.

This extract is from An Account of New Zealand, published in 1835. The statement as to the time it took to fell a tree is probably an exaggeration, except perhaps in some exceptional cases. For "shreds of flax" read "carefully laid plaited cords." It is highly improbable that the stout dugout hull would be broken if poised on a wave, though some straining of the lashings of the haumi and top-strake might result.

In former times it would be reckoned good work to complete a first-class canoe in two years; indeed, some parts, such as the elaborately carved stern and stem pieces, would probably occupy a much longer period.

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The best article on canoe-making that has yet come under the writer's notice is one written by "Indigena," and published in the Supplement to the New Zealand Herald of the 16th May, 1914. It is too good to be overlooked, and is here reproduced: