Canoes of the Samoan Isles

From the account of the voyage of La Perouse (1785-88) we take the following remarks on the smaller type of Samoan canoes, such as were used in home waters: "Their canoes have outriggers, are very small, and generally contain only five or six persons: some few, however, … contain as many as fourteen. They do not appear to deserve the praise that navigators have bestowed on their swiftness. I do not think when under sail that it exceeds seven knots; and with their paddles they could not keep way with us when we were running only four miles an hour. These Indians are such excellent swimmers that their canoes seem only to serve them to rest themselves in. As upon the least false movement they fill, they are obliged every moment to leap into the sea, take up their sinking vessels upon their shoulders, and pour out the water. They sometimes join two together by means of a cross-piece of wood, in which they make a step to receive the mast. In this way they are less likely to overset, and can preserve their provisions during a long voyage. Their sails are of matting … are extended by a sprit, and do not deserve a particular description…. They are so light that two men can carry them upon their shoulders with ease."

It is clear that the writer here refers to the small canoes employed for harbour or coastal use; the Samoan deep-sea vessels were a quite different type. Further on he says of these small canoes, "There were some of them extremely small, containing only a single man, and covered with ornaments … the slightest contact of the other canoes overset them every moment " This oversetting every moment must certainly have been somewhat of a drawback.

Missionary Turner described the superior type of Samoan single canoe as a keel of one piece, 25 ft. to 50 ft. long, "and to that they added board after board, not by overlapping and nailing, but by sewing each close to its fellow, until they had raised it some two, or it might be three feet from the ground. These boards were not … uniform, but were a number of pieces varying in size from eighteen inches to five feet long." The joins were served with a vegetable gum to render them watertight.

These craft were carvel-built, the common Polynesian style, and the planks were lashed together in the Fiji-Tongan manner by means of passing lashings through cants or flanges on their inner edges. page 340As Turner says, "The sewing only appeared on the inside. Outside all was smooth and neat, and it was only on close inspection you could see that there was a join at all." These canoes were from 18 in. to 30 in. wide, and, of course, provided with an outrigger. The sail was the usual triangular one of matting, set with the apex downwards, as in other groups. In former times the Samoans built large double canoes.

The author of the Cruise of the "Fawn" (1862) remarks: "On excursions outside the harbour large canoes are used, which carry from forty to fifty people. They are from thirty to sixty feet long; the keel is of one piece, and the sides are built up not with long planks, but with pieces of wood of irregular sizes and shapes, split out and smoothed with the hatchet, and most ingeniously stitched together with coconut sinnet, the lashings being passed through a rim left on the inner edge of each board. The canoe is made perfectly watertight with the gum obtained from the breadfruit-tree; and with such extreme nicety are the joints fitted that, on the outside, where the sewing is not visible, it is scarcely possible to detect them without very close inspection. Along the bow and stern is generally a row of white shells (Cypraea ovula), and some have a raised prow thickly studded over with these shells, and, above, the figure of some bird or beast…. The common canoes in daily use are merely hollowed logs, with rough outriggers."

The same writer describes a large Samoan double war-canoe seen by him as follows: "Though clumsy-looking, and apparently unsafe, these vessels sail very fast, and seldom meet with serious catastro-phies. They are very wet, bailing out being an incessant operation. The larger canoe is seventy feet long, and about five feet deep, built in the usual Samoan fashion with pieces of wood of irregular sizes and shapes; the lesser canoe serving as an outrigger, fifteen feet shorter, and of much smaller dimensions every way. Over both is a strong deck, having accommodation for one hundred men; there are holes through this for paddles to be worked between the two boats; and on it a house, thatched, with cooking-place and other conveniences. Over all is a small platform upon which the chief sits, exposed to wind and weather. The masts and yards are very heavy, as are the cumbrous sails of coconut matting, which, however, they manage with great dexterity, and which are so efficient that this canoe sailed round a vessel, in which the Consular Agent was a passenger, going eight knots. When attacking a fort they have around the deck a high bulwark of coconut stems, loopholed for musketry."

Lieutenant Walpole, in his Four Years in the Pacific, states: "As the planks are not of sufficient length, they are likewise joined by page 341sewing, the ends having been cut into the shape of a capital M and W, which fit close to each other. A broader streak covers the whole, and an outrigger keeps what would be but a frail conveyance steady in the water." This is quite a new feature, this dovetailing, and it is not mentioned by other writers. Is it an introduced usage? It resembles the haumi join. If introduced, it did not, apparently, extend to other parts of Polynesia. Nor is anything said of the rim lashing, or the position and securing of the batten.

In the account of Samoan canoes given in Commander Wilkes's story of the United States Exploring Expedition appears the statement, "They have no large double canoes such as are seen at Tonga and Fiji." Evidently by 1840 such vessels were no longer used, but in previous generations Samoans employed such craft in making long ocean voyages.

The Rev. J. B. Stair notes the disuse of the va'a tele, or big double canoes, formerly used by the natives of Samoa. "The vc'a tele … differed materially from the small double canoe, the alia at times now used. This is indeed a copy of the Tonga double canoe. The alia is formed by lashing two canoes of nearly equal length together by stout cross-pieces, which are securely fastened into the gunwales, and upon this stage, in the centre of the canoe, a thatched shed is placed for the accommodation of the crew. [See fig. 161.] In the page 342 va'a tele, or great canoe, one body of the canoe was much longer than the other, and instead of the shed being built in midships it was placed on a stage that projected far over the stern. It differed also in the rig, and was altogether more difficult to manage than the alia, which has superseded it. The last of these once-famous canoes was in existence in Samoa when I reached there in 1838. These large canoes must have been of considerable size, since, upon the fishing expeditions made at certain seasons of the year to a reef midway between Wallis Island and Savai'i, they were accustomed to carry two va'a alo, or large fishing-canoes, on the deck, which, on reaching the reef, were used in fishing for bonito, &c., the large canoe being reserved for crew and cargo."

The above is taken from a paper on "Early Samoan Voyages and Settlements," published in the Report of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 1895.

Mataafa, a prominent chief of Samoa, once stated that the alia consisted of two or more canoes bound together. The latter part of this statement reminds us of the lakatoi of New Guinea.

Mr. J. B. Fleck tells me that when at Samoa he saw canoes the lower planks of which had been lashed together by the interior rim or cant method, but that the top-strakes were lashed on in Maori style.

Of the single canoe furnished with an outrigger Wilkes wrote as follows in 1839: "The largest canoes are from thirty to sixty feet long, and capable of carrying from ten to twelve persons. They are formed of several pieces of plank fastened together with sennit. These pieces are of no regular size or shape. On the edge of each plank is a ledge or projection, which serves to attach the sennit, and to connect and bind it closely to the adjoining one. It is surprising to see the labour bestowed on uniting so many small pieces where large and good planks might be obtained. Before the pieces are joined, the gum from the fruit of the breadfruit-tree is used to cement them close and prevent leakage. These canoes retain their form much more truly than one would have supposed, and 1 saw few whose original model had been impaired by service. On the outside the pieces are so closely fitted as frequently to require close examination before the seams can be detected. This perfection of workmanship is astonishing to those who see the tools with which it is executed. They are now made of no more than a piece of iron tied to a stick, and used as an adze. This, with a gimlet, is all they have, and before they obtained these iron tools they used adzes made of hard stone. These canoes are built with a deck forward and aft. They are long and narrow, and their shape is elegant. They are paddled by natives page 343who sit two abreast, and are guided by a steersman. The seat of honour is on the forward deck, in the centre of which is a row of pegs, to which the large white ovula shell is attached by way of ornament…. Having both a prow and stern, these canoes cannot be manoeuvred without tacking; consequently the outrigger that constitutes their safety is, in using their sail, alternately to leeward and windward, and does not, when to leeward, add much to the stability of the canoe. They carry less sail than the canoes of the other natives of Polynesia, and, to guard against the danger of upsetting, the natives rig a sprit or boom (suati) projecting from the opposite side to that on which the outrigger is fitted. This boom is secured with guys to the top of the mast. When the wind blows fresh some of the men go out upon it, and thus balance or counteract the force of the wind. Those on the other side of the canoe are kept ready to go out on the outrigger when that becomes necessary. The sail is made of a mat, of a triangular shape, with its apex below: some of these are ten feet high."

"The old Samoan double canoe," writes G. Brown in his Melanesians and Polynesians, "has long been extinct, and the one which has been used of late years was modelled after the Fijian fashion, and in most cases was obtained from the Tongans, and of this there is only one specimen in Samoa at the present time. The ordinary canoes in use were the rough dugout used for fishing inside the reef, and a larger one of the same kind called soatau, which sometimes had the bow decked over. The beautiful carvel-built canoes to carry four were principally used for bonito-fishing…. They were generally built of breadfruit planks sewn on to a keel made of greenheart. After the same model, but much larger, were the dolphin-canoes, which were built with four seats for eight people, besides the steersman, or with five seats for twelve persons. These canoes carried a large sail…. All these canoes had outriggers, and in the case of the sailing-canoes they had one on both sides. If the breeze was strong, one of the crew stood on the windward side, going out farther and farther as the wind increased, and especially as the canoe was struck by a squall, and stepping inboard as it slackened. They were very skilful indeed in the management of these beautiful canoes. The paddles had a broad blade with round shoulders running away to a point…. The sails were made of mats, and something like a leg-of-mutton sail with the broad side uppermost. The ropes were made of the bark of Hibiscus tiliaceous. All the carvel-built canoes were fastened together by sinnet passing through holes gouged in a projecting part of the edge of each plank. The planks were fitted by rubbing turmeric along the edges; these were rubbed together, and page 344any part not properly jointed was at once shown by the absence of the turmeric mark on it. They were afterwards caulked with gum obtained from breadfruit-trees, spread on both sides of strips of native cloth, and placed between the planks before they were sewn together. After the canoe was finished it was rubbed with a species of coral used as pumicestone. The outrigger was made out of the log of some light tree, which was fastened to the canoe by means of cross-bars, one being fastened behind each seat to both sides of the canoe. From the end of these bars strong sharpened sticks were pierced in the upper side of the outrigger, and lashed to the crossbars, and the whole was kept in place by lashings of sinnet passing round the outrigger."

Of canoes seen at the island of Manua in 1849 Captain Erskine, of H.M.S. "Havannah," remarked: "The canoes we saw were small, built of separate pieces of timber tied together, with the usual outrigger, and the covered part or deck ornamented with a row of white cowries (Cypraea ovula). The larger canoes seemed to be hauled up under thatched sheds."

In describing a sojourn at Tutuila the same writer remarks: "We saw some of their larger canoes, in which they make voyages to the neighbouring islands. They are capable of holding fourteen paddlers, besides a sitter, and are similar in construction to the smaller canoes, although in addition to the floating outrigger they have a long spar projecting to windward, on which stands one of the crew as ballast, regulating his distance from the gunwale according to the strength of the breeze. The one sail is of matting, narrow at the head, and set between two masts. They have no way of reefing, and are said to be often blown off the coast, and are sometimes lost. They cannot beat to windward, although they seem to hold a tolerable wind; consequently, for communication with Manua, must await a north-wester, which even in the most regular season ot the trades occasionally blows for three days at a time."