I

A canoe is an item of material culture, and as such it can be described, photographed and even bodily transported into a museum. But—and this is a truth too often overlooked—the ethnographic reality of the canoe would not be brought much nearer to a student at home, even by placing a perfect specimen right before him.

The canoe is made for a certain use, and with a definite purpose; it is a means to an end, and we, who study native life, must not reverse this relation, and make a fetish of the object itself. In the study of the economic purposes for which a canoe is made, of the various uses to which it is submitted, we find the first approach to a deeper ethnographic treatment. Further sociological data, referring to its ownership, accounts of who sails in it, and how it is done; information regarding the ceremonies and customs of its construction, a sort of typical life history of a native craft—all that brings us nearer still to the understanding of what his canoe truly means to the native.

Even this, however, does not touch the most vital reality of a native canoe. For a craft, whether of bark or wood, iron or steel, lives in the life of its sailors, and it is more to a sailor than a mere bit of shaped matter. To the native, not less than to the white seaman, a craft is surrounded by an atmosphere of romance, built up of tradition and of personal experience. It is an object of cult and admiration, a living thing, possessing its own individuality.

We Europeans—whether we know native craft by experience or through descriptions—accustomed to our extraordinarily developed means of water transport, are apt to look down on a native canoe and see it in a false perspective—regarding it almost as a child’s plaything, an abortive, imperfect attempt to tackle the problem of sailing, which we ourselves have satisfactorily solved.1 But to the native his cumbersome, sprawling canoe is a marvellous, almost miraculous achievement, and a thing of beauty (see Plates XXI, XXIII, XL, XLVII, LV). He has spun a tradition around it, and he adorns it with his best carvings, he colours and decorates it. It is to him a powerful contrivance for the mastery of Nature, which allows him to cross perilous seas to distant places. It is associated with journeys by sail, full of threatening dangers, of living hopes and desires to which he gives expression in song and story. In short, in the tradition of the natives, in their customs, in their behaviour, and in their direct statements, there can be found the deep love, the admiration, the specific attachment as to something alive and personal, so characteristic of the sailors’ attitude towards his craft.

And it is in this emotional attitude of the natives towards their canoes that I see the deepest ethnographic reality, which must guide us right through the study of other aspects—the customs and technicalities of construction and of use; the economic conditions and the associated beliefs and traditions. Ethnology or Anthropology, the science of Man, must not shun him in his innermost self, in his instinctive and emotional life.

Plate XXI  

A Masawa Canoe

Nigada Bu’a, the sea-going canoe of Omarakana, showing general form, ornamentation of prow-boards, the leaf-shaped paddles and the form of the outrigger log. (See Div. I and II, also next Chap.).

Plate XXII  

Putting a Canoe into its Hangar

The canoes on the East shores of Boyowa are seldom used, and when idle are housed in shelters, built very much like ordinary huts, only much larger.

Plate XXIII  

Canoe Under Sail

This illustrates the rigging, the tilt of the canoe—the raised outrigger—and the carrying capacity of a canoe. This one is well in the water, with a crew of eighteen men. (See Div. I and II, and Ch. IX).

A look at the pictures (for instance Plates XXI, XXIV, XXXIX, or XLVII) will give us some idea of the general structure of the native canoes: the body is a long, deep well, connected with an outrigger float, which stretches parallel with the body for almost all its length (see Plates XXI and XXIII), and with a platform going across from one side to the other. The lightness of the material permits it to be much more deeply immersed than any sea-going European craft, and gives it greater buoyancy. It skims the surface, gliding up and down the waves, now hidden by the crests, now riding on top of them. It is a precarious but delightful sensation to sit in the slender body, while the canoe darts on with the float raised, the platform steeply slanting, and water constantly breaking over; or else, still better, to perch on the platform or on the float—the latter only feasible in the bigger canoes—and be carried across on the sea on a sort of suspended raft, gliding over the waves in a manner almost uncanny. Occasionally a wave leaps up and above the platform, and the canoe—unwieldy, square raft as it seems at first—heaves lengthways and crossways, mounting the furrows with graceful agility. When the sail is hoisted, its heavy, stiff folds of golden matting unroll with a characteristic swishing and crackling noise, and the canoe begins to make way; when the water rushes away below with a hiss, and the yellow sail glows against the intense blue of sea and sky—then indeed the romance of sailing seems to open through a new vista.

The natural reflection on this description is that it presents the feelings of the Ethnographer, not those of the native. Indeed there is a great difficulty in disentangling our own sensations from a correct reading of the innermost native mind. But if an investigator, speaking the native’s language and living among them for some time, were to try to share and understand their feelings, he will find that he can gauge them correctly. Soon he will learn to distinguish when the native’s behaviour is in harmony with his own, and when, as it sometimes happens, the two are at variance.

Thus, in this case, there is no mistaking the natives’ great admiration of a good canoe; of their quickness in appreciating differences in speed, buoyancy and stability, and of their emotional reaction to such difference. When, on a calm day, suddenly a fresh breeze rises, the sail is set, and fills, and the canoe lifts its lamina (outrigger float) out of the water, and races along, flinging the spray to right and left—there is no mistaking the keen enjoyment of the natives. All rush to their posts and keenly watch the movements of the boat; some break out into song, and the younger men lean over and play with the water. They are never tired of discussing the good points of their canoes, and analysing the various craft. In the coastal villages of the Lagoon, boys and young men will often sail out in small canoes on mere pleasure cruises, when they race each other, explore less familiar nooks of the Lagoon, and in general undoubtedly enjoy the outing, in just the same manner as we would do.

Seen from outside, after you have grasped its construction and appreciated through personal experience its fitness for its purpose, the canoe is no less attractive and full of character than from within. When, on a trading expedition or as a visiting party, a fleet of native canoes appears in the offing, with their triangular sails like butterfly wings scattered over the water (see Plate XLVIII), with the harmonious calls of conch shells blown in unison, the effect is unforgettable.2 When the canoes then approach, and you see them rocking in the blue water in all the splendour of their fresh white, red, and black paint, with their finely designed prow-boards, and clanking array of large, white cowrie shells (see Plates XLIX, LV)—you understand well the admiring love which results in all this care bestowed by the native on the decoration of his canoe.

Even when not in actual use, when lying idle beached on the sea front of a village, the canoe is a characteristic element in the scenery, not without its share in the village life. The very big canoes are in some cases housed in large sheds (see Plate XXII), which are by far the largest buildings erected by the Trobrianders. In other villages, where sailing is always being done, a canoe is simply covered with palm leaves (see Plates I, LIII), as protection from the sun, and the natives often sit on its platform, chatting, and chewing betel-nut, and gazing at the sea. The smaller canoes, beached near the sea-front in long parallel rows, are ready to be launched at any moment. With their curved outline and intricate framework of poles and sticks, they form one of the most characteristic settings of a native coastal village.