Bailers and Bailing

In canoes fitted with a floor or deck one or two spaces are left therein so that bailing operations may be performed. The illustrations given show the peculiar form of the Maori bailer, with its forward projecting handle that prevents undue strain on the wrist. The bailers having the straight handle in the rear are most trying to use, and are said to be quite a modern form.

Bailers were made from various woods—hinau, matai, maire, &c. Each bailing-place had a person allotted to it to act as bailer when necessary; in some cases two persons would bail from the one hole at the same time.

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The karakia tataa, or bailing-charms were recited while the process of bailing was going on, but apparently not on all occasions. The following is said to be a-charm repeated when bailing a canoe:—

Mimiti pakora te tai tapu ki Hawaiki
Ararawa E! Kawea au ki uta
Te Kohu-tirikawa E! Kawea au ki uta
Ki te ahuru i uta, ki te tota i uta
Ki te moenga i uta
E au ai taku moe.

In this effusion the reciter calls upon two beings, either sea-monsters or ancestral spirits (and one being can represent both), to convey him to shore—that is, to his destination, to the sheltered home where sleep is sound.

Parkinson remarks that he saw part of a human skull being used as a canoe-bailer in the Bay of Plenty.

The bailing-place in a canoe is known as the puna wai, or laingawai (tainga-a-wai).

The bailer is tata, tiheru, and ta wai.

The bailers of Funafuti, Ellice Group, are of the same form as those of New Zealand, with the forward projecting handle, but are of rough finish. In some other groups they are much more neatly made, and embellished with carvings. Occasionally the tongue-like handle curves downward and is connected with the bottom part of the bailer. There is one of this form in the Dominion Museum.

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The Ngati-Mahuta folk call a paddle "the leg of Mahuta" (Te waewae o Mahuta), their eponymic ancestor being a person who made much use of canoes in travelling.

In small canoes of the tiwai type there is, of course no, room for two paddlers abreast, and each person has to sit in the middle of the canoe; indeed, one person is sufficient to paddle such a craft. Big page 250 canoes afforded room for a double row of paddlers, one on either side, two sitting on each thwart.

In rough weather, when a canoe was shipping much water, two men were employed at each puna wai, or bailing-well. They were stationed on opposite sides of the hole in the floor, and filled their bailers alternately. As one man filled his bailer with a scooping motion, the other was emptying the contents of his over the side.

In Edge-Partington's Pacific Album are depicted bailers of Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, New Hebrides, and New Caledonia, all showing the forward projecting handles of the Maori bailer. The same form is used in a region of New Guinea. This handle in some Maori bailers has been fashioned into phallic form.

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