|
HISTORY
(source: Hawai Edu)
The Ancient
Sailing Canoes
During the
exploration of Polynesia, canoes venturing outward from the same
center must have been of the same design. Because of the great
distances, these must have been sailing canoes, with paddling as
auxiliary power used only for brief periods-to launch or land
canoes, or keep off a dangerous lee shore. Even with a sufficient
number of paddlers working in shifts, the amount of food and water
required to sustain energy for paddling for two or three thousand
miles would have exceeded the carrying capacity of the canoe.
Throughout Eastern Polynesia, the same basic design probably
persisted throughout the era of long distance two-way voyaging.
Later, ships being as mortal as their makers, this earlier "generic"
design vanished as designs evolved which became specialized to each
island group.
Using the
"age-distribution" method, those hull and sail design features found
to be most widely distributed throughout "Eastern" or "Marginal"
Polynesia when Europeans arrived (including Hawai'i, the Marquesas,
Tahiti, the Cook Islands and New Zealand) may be taken to be most
ancient because they must have been carried outward from the same
center of cultural diffusion.
Hulls were
deep enough to track well while sailing across the wind or on a
close reach into the wind. The round-sided V hulls of Tuamotuan and
Tahitian pahi as well as the presence of a rounded V in a drawing of
the hull section at the main crossboom of an early 19th century
Hawaiian double-hulled sailing canoe are evidence that the windward
efficiency of this shape, providing lateral resistance to the water
while under sail, was well known to ancient builders. The superior
structural strength of compound curves was well known-the weakness
of simple curves and flat surfaces was avoided (flat surfaces
passing through water also create "drag"), and all curvature below
the waterline was convex .
The most
widely distributed and presumably most ancient sail was a triangle
made up of strips of fine matting sewn together and mounted to two
spars, one serving as a mast; the other, as a boom, usually more
slender and either straight or slightly curved. This survived in the
Marquesas, Tuamotus, Cook Islands, and New Zealand, either as an
equilateral triangle or one cut narrower with the apex downward.
Voyaging
between Hawai'i and the South Pacific appears to have ceased several
centuries before European arrival. No explanation is found in the
traditions, but several may be imagined. The appropriation and
development of lands much larger than any they had known in the
South Pacific demanded the full attention of ruling chiefs, leaving
little time for voyaging. Those who visited their southern homelands
may have discovered that political events had made them less than
welcome. Moreover, in the murky world of chiefly intrigue which S.M.
Kamakau described so well, a ruling chief who went on a long voyage
always risked returning to find his lands and wives usurped by
another.
Specialization in Hawai'i
As long
distance voyaging declined, the need shifted from voyaging canoes to
large canoes for chiefly visits and warfare within the Hawaiian
Islands, resulting in changes in canoe design. For these short
coastal and inter-island trips, paddling replaced sailing as the
dominant power mode. Never certain when hospitality might turn sour,
chiefs prudently traveled with bodyguards. On a visit to another
chiefdom, they might prepare his food to avoid poisoning. Their
numbers were a silent announcement of his status. At a signal, they
could launch a raid, fight a skirmish, or conduct a guarded retreat
to the canoe landing.
And for a
chief eager to make a quick getaway regardless of wind conditions,
his bodyguards could also be put to work as paddlers. No longer need
he wait for a favorable wind, or beat upwind to a destination on
long tacks (a voyaging canoe could not sail to upwind as well as a
modern yacht equipped with keel and headsails). Paddling provided
great freedom of mobility, the ability to move canoes in any
direction despite calms or adverse winds. The shift from sailing to
a combination of paddling and downwind sailing caused a change in
hull design from hulls with sufficient V-shape and depth for
tracking against the wind to shallower hulls, round-bottomed aft of
the mid-section, which were more maneuverable under paddles or when
sailing downwind. Sails, no longer needed for working upwind,
evolved to a full-bellied shape, specialized for sailing with the
wind.
18th century
drawings depict a line (a boom lift) extending from the end of the
boom to the top of the mast, which bent the boom to a curve,
creating a deep pocket in the sail useful for running downwind.
Bending the boom close to the mast created a sagging of the sail
which enhanced the "crab claw" appearance; however the sail matting
was not cut to a true crab claw shape as it was in Polynesian
outliers in the Solomon Islands, but sewn up from strips of matting
plaited to a desired curve. One drawing by Webber shows that when
the boom lift was released, or eased out, the pocket was reduced
sufficiently for the sail to function on a broad reach.
Engineer and
canoe expert Ted Ralston has suggested that the deep curve in this
sail is a safety feature, creating an opening which, as in the true
crab claw of the Solomons, vents upwards, spilling excessive thrust.
This shape also reduces the sail area toward the ends of the spars,
which reduces the load the ends of the spars must carry.
There are
several other distinctive features of the classical Hawaiian canoe.
The manu, elliptical expansions at the tips of the bow and stern end
pieces, may have anciently been carved as symbols or representations
of birds or spirit images (manu may mean bird or person), but this
form has, like a Brancusi sculpture, been reduced to its simplest
abstraction. Usually considered ornamental, the writer has observed,
while running downwind in the double canoe Nalehia under a strong
press of sail in large swells, that the manu are not without
function. the manu ihu (forward) seem to keep the bows from driving
too easily into the back of a swell. A disastrous "boneyarding" is
avoided, and the air space within the hollow formed by the end piece
and the hull pops it to the surface. At the stern, the manu hope
help split the face of a following wave that might otherwise board
the canoe and swamp it. Another unique feature of the Hawaiian
double canoe was the invention of the curved crossboom, arched in
the center to hold the center deck higher above the water.
It's been
argued by Tommy Holmes (The Hawaiian Canoe, p. 71) and others that
the absence of ornament on Hawaiian canoes (by comparison with South
Pacific canoes) may be attributed to the rough Hawaiian waters, an
environment in which no carving or inlay that might weaken or burden
the canoe could be tolerated. Be that as it may, accounts of Maori
canoes in the rough waters off New Zealand, riding "like ducks"
under sail or paddles, leave no doubt about their seaworthiness and
structural integrity despite the elaborate carving of their end
pieces and gunwales. Quite possibly, esthetics in Hawai'i simply
took a different turn, inspired by some long forgotten designer who
saw clean, flowing simple lines as the most beautiful as well as
functional. Form follows function, but, as architects and automobile
designers know very well, form is also shaped by esthetics.
Perhaps the
only distinctive feature of Hawaiian canoes that may be considered
non-functional (depending on how you think about ancestral spirits)
is the slight projection of the hull from under the manu at the
stern, called the momoa. One version of an ancient saga tells us
that as a canoe was embarking on a voyage to Hawai'i, a spirit
announced his desire to go along. Informed by the chief that there
was no room, the spirit leaped from shore to a small projection
which he noticed at the stern, and rode there. That projection has
become traditional in Hawaiian canoes, some say as a place where an
invisible but benevolent ancestral spirit ('aumakua) can ride.
These were the
canoes of Hawaiian chiefs who met Cook and the early European
traders in the late 18th century. Europeans marveled at the
workmanship accomplished with simple tools of stone and bone. Chiefs
were not above showing off; when the Cook expedition arrived off
Maui in 1778, King Kahekili came out in a canoe in which all aboard
were dressed in feather capes, and "singing."
Paddlers of a
chief's canoe were not a scratch crew, but highly trained. As
Vancouver came to anchor at Kealakekua Bay, Kona, in 1793,
Kamehameha came out to formally greet him with eleven large canoes
"...with great order. The largest canoe being in the angular point,
was rowed by eighteen paddles on each side." The king wore "...the
most elegant feathered cloak I had yet seen, composed principally of
beautiful, bright yellow feathers... On his head he wore a very
handsome helmet, and made altogether a very magnificent appearance.
His canoe was advanced a little forward in the procession, to the
actions of which the other ten strictly attended, keeping the most
exact and regular time with their paddles, and inclining to the
right or left agreeably to the directions of the king, who conducted
the whole business with a degree of adroitness and uniformity, that
manifested a knowledge of such movements and maneuvre far beyond
what could reasonably have been expected. In this manner he paraded
around the vessels, with a slow and solemn motion. ... He now
ordered the ten canoes to draw up in a line under our stern, whilst,
with the utmost exertions of his paddlers, he rowed up along the
starboard side of the ship; and though the canoe was going at a very
great rate, she was in an instant stopped, with that part of the
canoe where his majesty was standing immediately opposite the
gangway."
The Return to
Sail Power
In the early
1790s the watch aboard a foreign ship sailing off O'ahu saw a vessel
approaching which, by the cut of its sails, appeared to be European;
but as it drew near and passed by it was seen to be a Hawaiian canoe
with sails cut to European shape. This was the fore-and-aft
spritsail.
It was a
simple modification, changing the ancient triangular sail to a
four-sided shape. The former boom was now a slender sprit stretching
diagonally upward from the base of the mast to support the peak of
the sail. Also from the base of the mast the foot of the sail ran
horizontally aft to the clew (bottom trailing edge) where the sheet
(controlling line) connected to it. In larger canoes the foot was
laced to a boom. This rig quickly became the standard for most
Hawaiian sailing canoes. Enduring well into the 20th century, it
became an authentic Hawaiian canoe tradition.
On some of the
largest double canoes a sail of about the same shape was used, not
with a sprit, but gaff-rigged, the head (top of the sail) laced to a
spar which was raised or lowered by halyards, and the entire foot of
the sail laced to a boom.
Once again,
sail had become the primary power mode, and again, canoes evolved to
meet new demands. Kamehameha's drive to bring all the islands under
the rule of Hawai'i Island required much more than the hit and run
raids of earlier disputes. Keeping armies in the field required
great numbers of huge canoes, not only for invasion but also for
keeping the army supplied, which meant canoes capable of returning
to Hawai'i Island, sailed (not paddled) short-handed and against the
prevailing wind, for supplies and reinforcements. The peleleu class
war canoes were invented for the purpose. These were sailing vessels
with deep hulls, some armed with swivel guns, carrying fore-and-aft
sail rigs, either as spritsails or gaff-rigged and capable of
sailing upwind.
Another
dimension presented itself when Vancouver had his carpenters lay up
a schooner, Brittannia, at Kealakekua Bay, South Kona, as a parting
gift to Kamehameha in 1794. Kamehameha apprenticed his canoemakers
to the work, they learned quickly, completed the ship themselves
under John Young's guidance, and set about building more. By 1802,
visitor John Turnbull could write that Kamehameha "owned twenty
vessels ranging in size from twenty five to seventy tons" (Turnbull,
1813).
Beyond
Kamehameha's needs there were other changes that brought Hawaiians
back to sail as their primary power mode. Under Kamehameha's laws
erasing old boundaries and prohibiting oppression, murder, and
theft, Hawaiians could travel in safety. Chiefs who went visiting no
longer required bodyguards who could double as paddlers. Moreover,
where once a chief could whistle up any number of strong paddlers
who were eager for adventure, if only to check out the girls on
another island, the impact of introduced diseases was now
devastating the population. The worst was yet to come, but the
population was already in free fall.
Before
Europeans arrived, the exchange of goods and services had been
confined to a complicated system of reciprocal gifting. After the
concept of trade for profit was introduced and unification had
erased barriers to travel, an expanding market economy and a
suddenly mobile population presented new demands for the movement of
products and passengers. Although schooners and sloops carried most
of the traffic, much coastal and inter-island shipping during the
19th century was also handled by sailing canoes. During the 1843
siege of the government by British Lord George Paulet, Kamehameha
III was whisked by canoe from Maui to Waikiki and back in order to
sign protest letters to the U.S. and Britain. In 1856, the Pacific
Commercial Advertiser reported that Hawaiians were still using
sailing canoes for inter-island travel. |
