The Boat Canoe

The taumualua was so called because it had two bow-shaped ends (taumua bow and lua, two). None are to be seen in Samoa at the present time. They were described to me as a long, wide canoe made of planks with raised flange page 406edges lashed together like the 'alia and the bonito canoe. They had raised projections at the bow and stern which were ornamented with pule shells. The outstanding feature was that they had no outriggers but were sailed as boats. They were propelled with paddles, the crew facing the bow and using the paddles in the same way as in other types of canoe. They were much used in the Samoan fighting of the last century, when barricades were erected along the sides for protection against the firearms which had come into use.

Smith (32, p. 158), who saw them, gives the following particulars of one:

The length was 60 to 70 feet and the width 7 to 8 feet. The planks were 7 or 8 feet long, 0.5 inch thick and sewn together like the 'alia double canoe. The depth of the hold was about 3 feet and there were ribs 4 feet apart. It was decked fore and aft for 8 feet. The seats for the paddlers were 3 inches below the gunwale. The bow and stern pieces were of malili wood and the hull of ifi lele, or fatau. A triangular sail was used with the apex down. The mast rested on top of thwarts, where it was kept in position by stays. The steering paddle was 14 feet long with a 12 inch-wide blade.

Kramer (18, vol. 2, pp. 266, 267) figures a taumualua in the water, and two models. In all, the upward projections at bow and stern are present but have no bearing on ancient technique, as they are only present in the taumualua. The curved ribs extending from gunwale to gunwale across the bottom are distinct pieces of wood lashed to projections or flanges on the inner surface of the side planks. A horizontal piece on either side is lashed to the ribs and in turn supports the thwarts. One of the models shows the mast stepped to a longitudinal board attached in the middle line to two cross booms which rest on the gunwales. The mast is stayed with ropes. The triangular sail has the apex forward over the bow cover, while one side runs parallel with the lines of the gunwales, and the base is directed astern.

The whole technique is apparently native and surprising as a departure from the use of the outrigger. My Samoan informants in various parts of the group always enumerated the taumualua among the types of Samoan canoe and stoutly maintained that the canoe was not due to foreign white influence. Their proof was the native technique in building and the use of paddles. They failed to see my difficulty in accepting their claims to having invented a vessel without an outrigger. Only one old man said that the taumualua was not very ancient but must have come in about the same time as the missionaries. However, he, too, maintained that it was native to Samoa in that the Samoans made it. The claims of the present-day Samoan to the invention of the taumualua is an excellent example of the intentional fallacy of human memory. It gave them great satisfaction to think that they had a distinct type of canoe that others did not have.

However, Samuel Ella (11, a, p. 247) states that the taumualua was introduced into Samoa in 1849 owing to an incident in the Samoa "war of 1848-1851." Owing to damage to the property of British subjects, Captain Worth page 407of H.M.S. "Calypso" inflicted a heavy fine on Malietoa and his adherents, who were settled in a fortified position at Mulinuu Promontory near Apia in Upolu. He blockaded them with a long boat manned by a few marines. The opposing people of Aana and Atua were so interested in the success with which a vessel of the long-boat type could keep Malietoa's army blockaded that they desired a similar type of canoe. Mr. Eli Jennings, an American citizen living in the district, built for them two boats 50 feet in length on the model of a whale boat. Planks were fastened across the thwarts and bulwarks of bamboo raised. Fore and aft figureheads were erected and decorated with white shells. After obtaining these models by diffusion, they learned to make them themselves to a length of 50 or 60 feet and more. Hence the origin of the taumualua, which is interesting in the subsequent adaptation of Samoan technique to supply the lack of nails and sawn timber in carrying out a foreign idea.