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.