Behring Straits, which differs but little from another in the same
museum from Greenland; the _kayak_ of Greenland has a knob of ivory at
each end to protect the sharp point. The _baidar_ is used at Ochotsk
and Kamtschatka, on the Asiatic coast, and all along the northern coast
of America, eastward from Behring Strait. Models of both _baidar_ and
_kayak_ are in the British Museum, from Kotzebue Sound. In Frobisher
Strait, Frobisher, in 1577, says the boats are of two kinds of leather
stretched on frames, the greater sort open, and carrying sixteen or
twenty people (the _baidar_), and the lesser, to carry one man, covered
over, except in one place where the man sits (the _kayak_). In Hudson’s
Straits and Greenland, where the larger vessels are called _oomiak_,
they are flat-sided and flat-bottomed, about three feet high, and
nearly square at the bow and stern, whereas this sort on the north-west
coast is sometimes pointed at bow and stern. Kerguelen, in 1767,
mentions both kinds in Greenland; and Kalm, in 1747, speaks of both,
though not from personal observation, on the coast of Labrador. The
Esquimaux canoe has been known to have drifted from Greenland across
the north of Scotland, and has been picked up, with the man still alive
in it, on the coast of Aberdeen (Wilson).
In Britain the _coracle_ of osier, covered with skin, is mentioned
by Caesar, and in Britain, Gaul, and Italy by Lucan (A.D. 39-65). In
Scotland, Bellenden, in the sixteenth century, speaks of the _currock_
of wands, covered with bulls’ hide, as being in use in the sixteenth
century, and its representative is still used in the west of Ireland.
Sir William Wilde says that, under the name of _curragh_, it is still
made of leather, stretched over a wooden frame, on the Boyne, and in
Arran, on the west coast, of light timber, covered with painted canvas,
which has superseded the use of leather. I have seen these vessels at
Dingle, on the south-west coast, where they go by the name of _nevōg_;
they are there 23 feet in length by 4 in width, and 1 ft. 9 inches
deep, made of laths, and covered with painted canvas; they are used,
from Valentia, along the west coast as far as Galway. In the south
they are larger than in the north, where they are called _curraghs_,
and a single man can carry one on his back, as the ancient Briton did
his _coracle_. Their continuance is caused by their cheapness, costing
only £6 when new. Here also they were, until recently, constructed of
leather. They have a small triangular sail, and, like the most ancient
forms of vessels, they are guided, when sailing, by means of oars, one
on each side.
5. _Rafts._
The trunks of trees, united by mutual attraction, as they floated down
the stream, would suggest the idea of a raft. The women of Australia
use rafts made of layers of reeds, from which they dive to obtain
mussel-shells. In New Guinea the catamaran, or small raft formed of
three planks lashed together with rattan, is the commonest vessel used.
Others are larger, containing ten or twelve persons, and consist of
three logs lashed together in five places, the centre log being the
longest, and projecting at both ends.
This is exactly like the catamaran used on the coast of Madras, a
model of one of which is in the Indian Museum; they are also used on
the Ganges, and in the Asiatic isles. At Manilla they are known by
the name of _saraboas_; but the perfection of raft navigation is on
the coast of Peru. Ulloa, in 1735, describes the _balzas_ used on the
Guayaquil, in Ecuador, and on the coast as far south as Paita. They are
called by the Indians of the Guayaquil _jungadas_, and by the Darien
Indians _puero_. They are made of a wood so light that a boy can easily
carry a log 1 foot in diameter and 3 or 4 yards long. They are always
made of an odd number of beams, like the New Guinea and Indian rafts,
the longest and thickest in the centre, and the others lashed on each
side. Some are 70 ft. in length and 20 broad. When sailing, they are
guided by a system of planks, called _guaras_, which are shoved down
between the beams in different parts of the raft as they are wanted,
the breadth of the plank being in the direction of the lines of the
timbers. By means of these they are able to sail near the wind, and to
luff up, bear away, and tack at pleasure. When a _guara_ is put down in
the fore part of the raft, it luffs up, and when in the hinder part, it
bears away. This system of steering, he says, the Indians have learnt
empirically, ‘their uncultivated minds never having examined into the
_rationale_ of the thing.’
It was one of these vessels which Bartolomew Ruiz, pilot of the second
expedition for the discovery of Peru, met with; and which so astonished
the sailors, who had never before seen any vessel on the coast of
America provided with a sail. Condamine speaks of the rafts in 1743,
on the Chinchipe, in Peru. They are also used on the coast of Brazil,
where they are also called _jungadas_, from which locality there is
a model of one in the British Museum, and another in the Christy
collection. Professor Wilson thinks it was by means of these vessels,
driven off the coast of America westward, that the Polynesian and Malay
islands were peopled; and this brings us to the consideration of the
peculiar class of vessel which is distributed over a continuous area
in the Pacific and adjoining seas, viz. the outrigger canoe, which, I
shall endeavour to show, was derived from the raft.
6. _Outrigger-canoes._
The sailing properties of the _balza_, or any other similar raft, must
have been greatly impeded by the resistance offered to the water by the
ends of its numerous beams. In order to diminish the resistance, the
obvious remedy was to use only two beams, placed parallel to each other
at a distance apart, with a platform laid on cross-poles between them.
Of this kind we find a vessel used by the Tasmanians, and described
by Mr. Bonwick, on the authority of Lieut. Jeffreys. The natives, he
says, would select two good stems of trees and place them parallel to
each other, but a couple of yards apart; cross-pieces of small size
were laid on these, and secured to the trees by scraps of tough bark.
A stronger cross-timber, of greater thickness, was laid across the
centre, and the whole was then covered by wicker-work. Such a float
would be thirty feet long, and would hold from six to ten persons
(Herbert Spencer, _Descriptive Sociology_ (London, 1874), No. 3, Table
V).
In Fiji, Williams describes a kind of vessel called _ulatoka_, a raised
platform, floating on two logs, which must evidently be a vessel of the
same description as that used in Tasmania.
From these two logs were derived the double canoe on the one hand, and
the canoe with the outrigger on the other.
A link between the catamaran and the outrigger canoe is seen in a model
in the India Museum, from Madras. It consists of the usual catamaran,
already described, of three beams lashed together, the longest being
in the centre, across which are attached, their ends extending on one
side, long outrigger poles, to the extremities of which, parallel, and
at some distance from the catamaran, is fastened an outrigger log, of
smaller size and length, pointed at both ends, and boat-shaped, exactly
like those used with the outrigger canoes to be hereafter described.
When the art of hollowing out canoes was introduced, then one canoe
and one log, or two canoes, were employed, as the case might be. This
I consider to be a more natural sequence than to suppose the outrigger
invented as a means of steadying the dug-out canoe.
The outrigger canoe, and its accompanying double canoe, is used over
the whole of the Polynesian and Asiatic islands--from Easter Island
on the east, to Ceylon and the Andamans on the west. Their varieties
are also, in some cases, continuous; and I will endeavour to trace
the distribution of each, commencing with the canoe with the single
outrigger.
Towards the eastern and northern extremities of the Polynesian Islands
we find that the canoes have a single outrigger, and that the ends
of the outrigger poles are attached directly to the outrigger log,
instead of being connected with it by upright supports, as is the case
elsewhere. As the outrigger log is on a lower level than the line of
the gunwales of the canoe, across which the other ends of the outrigger
poles are lashed, they are generally curved downwards to meet the
outrigger.
This is the form described by La Perouse in Easter Island. It is
the same in the drawings of canoes from Marquesas; also in the one,
figured by Wilkes, from Wytoohee or Disappointment Isle, in the Low
Archipelago; and in the one from Tahiti, Society Isles; also in those
of the Sandwich Isles and the Kingsmill Isles; and it reappears again
on the extreme west of the group in Ceylon, No. 1265 of my collection.
But whilst this peculiarity appears to be constant in the
above-mentioned region, the form of the body of the canoe differs in
each group of islands. In the Marquesas the bow turns up very much, in
the Sandwich Islands only slightly (No. 1264); in Disappointment Isle
there is a projecting part before and behind, by which they step into
it; in Tahiti they have a similar projection over the stern only, which
is used for a similar purpose.
To the westward of these, in a group extending over the centre of the
region in question, all the outriggers that I have seen described,
either by means of models or drawings, have upright supports on the
upper side, and on these the outrigger poles rest, so as to be on the
level of the line of the gunwales. This is the case in Nuie or Savage
Island; in Samoa (No. 1262); in the Caroline Isles; in Bowditch Island,
one of the Union group; in Tonga and Fiji; in New Guinea; in the
Louisiade Archipelago, and in North Australia.
Another peculiarity in this central region deserves notice. The ends
of the canoe are covered with a deck extending over about one-third of
its length fore and aft, and on this deck there is a row of upright
pegs, carved out of the same piece as the deck, and running down the
centre of it. Each peg is surmounted by a white _Cypraea ovula_ shell
tied on. The origin and meaning of this custom is unknown, but it was
probably adopted originally as insignia of the rank of the owner. Its
distribution is limited to a group of islands lying between about
the 10th and 20th parallel of south latitude, and 170° and 180° west
longitude. Cook, in 1773, speaks of it in the Friendly Isles; and
Wilkes, in 1838, mentions it in Samoa, Fiji, and Bowditch Island.
The canoes of the Solomon Isles and other islands are, however, also
ornamented with shells in different parts.
The canoe with the single outrigger is also used in [Garret Dennis
Island], which is described by Dampier in 1686; in the Ladrones, by
Pigafetta, 1519; in the Pelew Islands; in Borneo; in Ceylon; in the
Nicobar and Andaman Islands.
In Kingsmill and the Caroline Islands, to the north, the outrigger is
somewhat smaller than elsewhere, its length not exceeding one-third of
the length of the canoe. In the adjoining groups of the Kingsmill and
Ladrone Islands we have a variety of this vessel in which the canoe, on
the outrigger side, is nearly flat, having a belly only on the opposite
side. This is described by Wilkes in 1838, and Dampier in 1686.
The double canoe represents a variety in which both logs of the
double-logged raft have developed into canoes. The two canoes are
placed side by side, at a little distance apart, and transverse spars
are lashed across the gunwales of both; a platform being built upon the
cross spars; No. 1266 of my collection.
Double canoes of this kind were used in New Zealand formerly, also in
New Caledonia. Mr. Baines mentions it in North Australia, but I am not
aware that it is used in New Guinea. Cook speaks of it in the Friendly
Isles, Wilkes in Fiji. It was formerly used in Samoa, but Wilkes says
it has been discontinued, and the single outrigger only is now used; in
Tahiti; in the Low Archipelago, the inhabitants of which group are very
expert sailors, steering by the stars, and seldom making any material
error; in the Sandwich Isles; also in Ceylon, where it is called a
_paddy boat_; in Burmah and in some of the Indian rivers; at Mosapore,
where it goes by the name of _langardy_; and in Cochin, on the southern
portion of the Malabar coast, where it is employed as a ferry-boat. It
also appears, by a model in the India Museum, that it is used as high
up as Patna, on the Ganges.
In Fiji we find a connecting link between the double canoe and the
canoe with the single outrigger. Here the outrigger consists of a boat,
similar in construction to the large one to which it is attached,
but smaller, and connected with the platform between them by upright
supports.
Contrivances for sailing near the wind with the single outrigger canoe
have led to the introduction of several other varieties of this class
of vessel. It is necessary that the outrigger should always be on the
windward side. The outrigger acts as a weight on the windward side, to
prevent the narrow canoe from being blown over on the opposite side.
When it blows very hard, the men run out on to the outrigger, to give
it the additional weight of their bodies. Wilkes says that whenever
the outrigger gets to the leeward side, there is almost invariably an
upset. The outrigger probably is pressed too deeply into the water,
and meeting with too much resistance, breaks the poles. To meet this
difficulty both the canoe and outrigger are, in some parts, made
pointed at both ends. When they wish to tack, instead of luffing and
coming about, they bear away, until the vessel gets on the opposite
quarter, and then, by shifting the sail, they sail away again stern
first. This system is pursued in Fiji, in parts of New Guinea, and
northward, in Kingsmill Islands (Wilkes).
Another mode of meeting this difficulty consists in having two
outriggers, one on each side. This is employed in the Louisiade
Archipelago (No. 1260), in parts of New Guinea, and to the north, in
the Sooloo Archipelago. Yet another method remains to be described. In
Samoa the canoes are built with bow and stern, and the outrigger is
pointed towards the fore part only. As these vessels can only sail one
way, the outrigger, in tacking, must necessarily be sometimes on the
leeward side; to meet this, they rig out a platform corresponding to
the outrigger platform on the opposite side; this, for distinction’s
sake, we may term a _weather platform_. It has no outrigger log, nor
does it touch the water, but when the wind blows so heavily as to
press the outrigger down on the lee side, they run out on the weather
platform, and counterbalance the effect of the wind by their weight.
This contrivance is used in some parts of New Guinea, where, it may
be observed, the varieties of the outrigger canoe are more numerous
than in most of the other islands. It is also used in the Solomon
Isles, where the weather platform is of the same width as the outrigger
platform; and probably in some of the other islands to the north.
Finally we have, in the Asiatic Archipelago, a contrivance which may
be said to be derived partly from the double outrigger, and partly
from the weather platform last described. In proportion as the simple
dug-out canoe began to be converted into a built-up vessel, and to
acquire greater beam, they began to depend less and less on the
support of the outrigger. The double outrigger necessarily presented
considerable resistance to the water, but the vessel was still too
narrow to sail by itself. A weather platform had, however, been
found sufficient to balance the vessel on one side, and the next
step was to knock off the outrigger log on the other side, thereby
converting the outrigger platform into a weather platform; the two
platforms projecting one on each side of the vessel, on the level of
the gunwales, without touching the water, and thereby acting on the
principle of the balancing-pole of a tight-rope dancer, whilst the
resistance to the water was by this means confined to that of the hull
of the vessel itself. These double weather-platform boats were also
found more convenient in inland waters, in the canals in Manilla, and
elsewhere.
De Guignes, in 1796, mentions a contrivance of this sort in the
Philippines, but from the account, it is not quite clear whether he
refers to a double weather platform, or a vessel with an outrigger
and a weather platform. He says that the boats at Manilla are very
sharply built, and furnished with yards, which serve as _balances_,
on the windward side of which, when the wind blows hard, the sailors
place themselves to counterpoise the effect of the wind on the sails.
This contrivance does not, however, always ensure safety, for at times
the bamboos which form the balance break, in which case the boat
founders and the crew are lost. Dampier, however, in 1686, clearly
speaks of the double weather platform at Manilla. He says that the
difference between these Manilla boats and those at Guam, in the
Ladrones, is that, whereas at Guam there is a little boat, fastened to
the outriggers, that lies in the water, the beams or bamboos here are
fastened transverse-wise to the outlayers on each side, and touch not
the water like boats, but one, three, or four feet above the water, and
serve for the canoe-men to sit and row and paddle upon. He says, that
when the vessel reels, the ends of the platform dip into the water,
and the vessel rights itself. Still further north, at Rangoon, on the
Irrawaddy, we find the same contrivance described by Symes in 1795.
He says that the boats are long and narrow, sixty feet in length, and
not more than twelve in the widest place; they require a good deal of
ballast, and would have been in constant danger of upsetting, had they
not been provided with outriggers which, composed of thin boards, or
oftener of buoyant bamboos, make a platform that extends horizontally
six or seven feet on the outside of the boat from stem to stern. Thus
secure, he says, the vessel can incline no further than until the
platform touches the surface of the water, when she immediately rights;
on this stage the boatmen ply their oars.
This constitutes one out of many points of evidence that might be
mentioned, serving to show that the arts and culture of the Burmese,
and of all this part of Asia, have been derived from the Malay
Archipelago more probably than the reverse.
The outrigger canoe itself has never, I believe, been known on the
Irrawaddy within the memory of man, but, as already seen, it is used in
the Nicobar and Andaman Isles and on the coast to the south.
These outriggers, or balancing platforms, appear gradually to have
diminished in size as the vessel increased in beam, and there can be
little doubt that the rude stages or balconies outside the gunwales
represented in the models of many of the larger vessels used in these
seas are the last vestiges of the outrigger. No. 1278 of my collection
is an example of this.
7. _Rudders, Sails, and other Contrivances._
All the various items of evidence which I have collected, and
endeavoured to elucidate by means of survivals, whether in relation to
modes of navigation or other branches of industry, appear to me to tend
towards establishing a gradual development of culture as we advance
northward. Although Buddhism and its concomitant civilization may have
come from the north, there has been an earlier and prehistoric flow of
culture in the opposite direction--northward--from the primaeval and
now submerged cradle of the human family in the southern hemisphere.
This, I venture to think, will establish itself more and more clearly,
in proportion as we divest ourselves of the numerous errors which
have arisen from our acceptance of the Noachian deluge as a universal
catastrophe.
As human culture developed northward from the equator toward the 40th
parallel of latitude, civilization began to bud out in Egypt, India,
and China, and a great highway of nations was established by means of
ships along the southern margin of the land, from China to the Red Sea.
Along this ocean highway may be traced many connexions in ship forms
which have survived from the earliest times. The _oculus_, which,
on the sacred boats of the Egyptians, represented the eye of Osiris
guiding the mummy of the departed across the sacred lake, is still seen
eastward--in India and China--converted into an ornamental device,
whilst westward it lived through the period of the Roman and Grecian
_biremes_ and _triremes_, and has survived to this day on the Maltese
rowing-boats and the _xebecque_ of Calabria, or has been converted
into a hawser-hole in modern European craft. The function of the
rudder--which in the primitive vessels of the southern world is still
performed by the paddlers, whilst paddling with their faces to the
prow--was confided, as sails began to be introduced, to the rearmost
oars. In some of the Egyptian sculptures the three hindermost rowers on
each side are seen steering the vessel with their oars. Ultimately one
greatly developed oar on each side of the stern performed this duty;
the _loom_ of which was attached to an upright beam on the deck, as
is still the case in some parts of India. In some of the larger Malay
_prahaus_ there are openings or windows in the stern, considerably
below the deck, by which the steersmen have access to two large
rudders, one on each side; each rudder being the vestige of a side oar.
Throughout the Polynesian Islands the steering is performed with
either one or two greatly developed paddles. Both in the rudder of the
Egyptian sculptures and in the _gubernaculum_ of the Roman vessels,
we see the transition from the large double oar, one on each side,
to the single oar at the stern. The ship of Ptolemaeus Philopator
had four rudders, each thirty cubits in length (Smith’s _Dict._, s.
v. ‘Navis’). The Chinese and Japanese rudder is but a modification
of the oar, worked through large holes in the stern of the vessel;
which large holes, in the case of the Japanese, owe their preservation
to the orders of the Tycoon, who caused them to be retained in all
his vessels, in order to prevent his subjects from venturing far to
sea. The _buccina_, or shell trumpet, which is used especially on
board all canoes in the Pacific, from the coast of Peru to Ceylon, is
represented, together with the _gubernaculum_, in the hands of Tritons
in Roman sculptures (Smith’s _Dict._, s. v. ‘Navis’), and the shell
form of it was preserved in its metallic representatives.
The sail, in its simplest form, consists of a triangular mat, with
bamboos lashed to the two longer sides. In New Guinea and some of the
other islands, this sail, which is here seen in its simplest form, is
simply put up on deck, with the apex downwards and the broad end up,
and kept up by stays fore and aft. When a separate mast was introduced,
this sail was hauled up by a halyard attached to one of the bamboos,
at the distance of about one-fifth of its length from the broad end,
the apex of the bamboo-edged mat being fastened forward by means of
a tack. By taking away the lower bamboo the sail became the _lateen_
sail of the Malay pirate _proa_, the singular resemblance of which to
that of the Maltese galley of the eighteenth century (a resemblance
shared by all other parts of the two vessels) may be seen by two models
placed side by side in the Royal United Service Institution. Professor
Wilson observes that the use of the sail appears to be almost unknown
on either continent of America, and the surprise of the Spaniards on
first seeing one used on board a Peruvian _balza_ arose from this known
peculiarity of early American navigation (p. 218). Lahontan, however,
in 1684, says that the Canadian bark canoes, though usually propelled
by paddles, sometimes carried a small sail. He does not, however, say
whether the knowledge of these has been derived from Europeans. Mr.
Lloyd also mentions small sails used with bark canoes in Newfoundland.