CANOE BUILDING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 3, 5 January 1939, Page 5

CANOE BUILDING

LOST ART OF FIJIANS

ONCE FAMOUS GIANTS

Once the most skilled builders of canoes in the Pacific, the Fijians of today have lost the art, writes G. S. Shepherd in the "Adelaide Chronicle."

Go to New Guinea and see the variety of handsomely made ornamented canoes of those less civilised natives; go to the Solomon Islands and see their 18 different types of canoes, a veritable mercantile marine or native flotilla, whenever occasion demands; but go to Fiji and you will find only the primitive little outriggers, a sorry edition of their great deep sea-going canoes, carrying crews of 50, which once. sailed among the far scattered islands of this group.

The reason for the decay of their art of panoe building is simple enough. The' present-day Fijian, if less bloodthirsty than his forbears, is certainly not the simple-minded native of yore. The white man has virtually civilised Fiji from the top of its jagged mountain peaks to the head of its submarine coral gardens, and in the process the Fijian has not been overlooked.

He has taken to it like a duck to water, and overboard have gone many of his customs and arts, including the one of canoe building. What does he want with a big canoe—an intricate and protracted job the building—when he can easily buy a small cutter? He may certainly have to cut many bags of copra for payment, but copra is always plentiful; if he is a son of a well-to-do Suva chief, then he probably has a launch of his own. I have met three who owned launches; one of them actually possessed a speedboat as well. GREAT DOUBLE CANOES. By far the greatest of their masterpieces in the olden days were their Drua canoes, immense double canoes held together by a raised deck of lashed planking, the smaller acting as an outrigger and always kept to the windward. Today in Fiji there is only one in existence, belonging to a European, who has a large collection of rare native curios. Valued at £6000, and more than 100 years old, this sole survivor is said to be in perfect order, and could be put to sea immediately. Although used mostly in island warfare, the canoes were hot necessarily built for that purpose, being also used for general trading purposes. The largest measured 110 feet in length, with six to eight feet beams, and a masthead 60 feet high for the sail of fine hibiscus matting. As many' as 50 men could sail in them; a pig could be roasted whole on ! an open cooking place; then there was ample room for food, water, and weapons for long sea voyages. And often room for native captives, too. Under a favourable wind they could reach 15 knots, but the most remarkable of- their features was their method of construction. The principle of nailing, as we understand it, was not known to the Fijian. With his meagre equipment of stone axes and coral rasps, he felled great forest trees and skilfully fashioned them into the canoes. Never a hammer, nail, or bolt] was used to fasten their frames to- j gether; their planks were sewn together ! with hibiscus cordage, or coconut fibre rope, then caulked down with gum obtained from the breadfruit tree. Some of the cordage used was as thick as a man's arm. to tradition, seven years were actually spent in building the largest Druas. Upon completion, it was a great event, and their usual gargantuan feast took place with human victims for a sacrifice. LAUNCHED OVER BODIES. A number of men was killed, and in order that their spirits might enter into the canoe, ensuring it a swift and j safe passage, -the canoes were then launched over the corpses. The victims were obtained from certain small islands, which enjoyed by hereditary rights the dubious distinction of supplying the necessary quota. Such was the fame of the Druas that the Tongans, whose crafts were inferior, though they covered more ocean than any other Island race, copied them from the Fijians during their periodical excursions of conquest to Fiji. In fact, Ma'afu, a celebrated Tongan warrior, who conquered the windward side of Fiji in the fifties, actually mounted small cannon on two of- his | largest Druas, and if they did little execution in bombardment to the Fijian fortresses, their moral effect was devastating. j is a grc .it pity that their spectacu-' lar double canoes are now extinct. The present-day outriggers strike even the next matter-of-fact visitor to Fiji as decidedly out of keeping for an advanced race of natives noted for their traditional skill in shipbuilding. A few of the larger ones with a small deck are slightly more pretentious, but even these are becoming fewer; by far 'the majority are simply cut out of a I piece of timber, though hardly in the true Robinson Crusoe fashion, and mounting a small sail; while a floating log of wood, rigidly attached to the canoe by several firmly-lashed poles, adds to their stability.

Such as they are, however, you will find them skimming across the tranquil island lagoons, as they are fanned by the trade winds, but rarely venturing outside the reef into the deep, restless waters of the Pacific—waters which held no terrors for their great double canoes of bygone days.