Watercraft at Cambridge (UK) Anthropology Museum

Fans for watercraft ethnography would do well to visit Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Artefacts on display from many peoples reflect not only a variety of watercraft types and applications, but also a diversity of the ways in which watercraft are culturally significant to their users.

We'll start out with artefacts from the Canadian Artic before moving on to items from Oceania.

Kayak from Clyde Inlet, Baffin Island, Canada, collected in 1946.

Bow-end view of Baffin Island kayak.

Cockpit coaming and internal structure of Baffin Island kayak.

A section of skin pieced into the deck of the Baffin Island kayak. 

Kayak model and hunter from the Canadian Arctic, made from walrus ivory. The kayak is equipped with harpoons, spears and a sealskin float all fastened to the deck.

Walrus tusk collected in the Canadian Arctic in 1927, decorated with a scene of umiaks hunting whales, made for sale to Europeans.

Moving on to items from the Pacific world:

Dugout canoe collected in 1914 from the Utakwa River in West Papua (Irian Jaya) New Guinea.

Carved detail on New Guinea dugout canoe.

Beautifully carved canoe prow in the shape of a crocodile's head, collected in 1927 on the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea. Crocodiles are prominent not only in the river, but also in local myths and spiritual beliefs.

Decorated canoe paddles from the Sepik river.

Canoe "wave cutter" from Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. These decorative, symbolic devices are fitted to the bow of ocean-going canoes used in the kula ring of ritual trade between islands in New Guinea's Massim region. (See B. Malinowski's classic Argonauts of the Western Pacific, 1922.) Made in 2009.

Canoe carving in ebony and mother-of-pearl by Isaac Sulawai of Papua, New Guinea, made 2008-2009. According to the display card, the canoe's occupants are at sea but they are not paddling, leaving the canoe (and themselves) at risk of capsize -- a metaphor for PNG's lack of effective political leadership.

A late 19th or early 20th C "headhunting canoe" from New Georgia, Solomon Islands. The display card is ambiguous whether this is a reduced-size model or a full-size copy. In the latter case it would be a very small canoe, limited to a crew of perhaps two.

The prow of the Solomon Islands canoe, decorated with shells and mother-of-pearl.

Lashed-lug construction of the Solomon Islands canoe.

Toward the ends of the Solomon Islands canoe, the strakes are lashed directly to each other via the lugs that are left standing as the planks are carved.

Stern of the Solomon Islands canoe.

Bowls in the form of canoes, used to serve taro during feasts in the Solomon Islands, collected 1904. Carved dolphins and heads of frigate birds appear on both. Contrasting decoration of nautilus and conus shell. 

Detail of the "figureheads" on the lower of the two taro bowls from the Solomon Islands.

War canoe figurehead representing a crocodile, from the Kenyah people of Borneo, late 19th C. The eyes are Chinese porcelain teacups. The teeth are boars' tusks and sheet metal. 

Model of a Maori war canoe from New Zealand, 19th C. Real ones were up to 40m long -- too big to be collected by a museum -- so Maori craftsmen built models for ethnographers to collect.

Detail of gunwale carving on the Maori canoe model.

Bow carving on the Maori canoe model.

Figure at the base of the sternpost on the Maori canoe model.

Stern of the Maori canoe model.

Side-to-bottom stitching, carved thwart, and carved gunwale (amidships) on the Maori canoe model.

Maori Canoe bailer collected in Aotearoa, New Zealand, by Capt. Cook, 1768-1780. The eyes are of haliotis shell. A split has been repaired with flax thread.

Left: paddle from Solomon Islands, 1900, decorated both sides with a man in a canoe, frigate birds, and a man holding a pistol.
Middle: Maori paddle-club with shell inlay, New Zealand, collected by Capt. Cook.
Right: sternpost of a Maori war canoe (1905), similar to that on the model Maori canoe above. 

Wooden dish in the form of a double-hull canoe, used by a Fijian priest to hold scented oil.. From Rewa, Levu River, Fiji, collected ~1875.

Although the exhibits are somewhat old-fashioned in their presentation, and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology appears to change most of them but rarely (if ever), it's enlightening nonetheless, and there are items here that are probably no longer in indigenous use. Museum entry is free.

Vatican boat model exhibit, Part 3

This is the final post about a current exhibit of boat models and canoe paddles at the Vatican Museums. Previous posts about this exhibit cover the other models representing boats from outside the Western tradition, and one full-size canoe from the Solomon Islands. As noted in the previous posts, exhibit signage was sparse. We reproduce the English text of the exhibit cards in quotation marks. Our own comments appear in parentheses. As always, click any image to enlarge.

"Tahiti: Catamaran" (The two hulls are essentially the same but with their ends reversed. The boat should perform the same in either direction when it shunts.)

"Aotearoa New Zealand: Maori boat" (A monohull war canoe. See our earlier post on boats like this.)

"Papua New Guinea: Three hull catamaran" (beautiful double crab-claw rig)

(Same model as above, showing the hull configuration.)

"Papua New Guinea: Boat with outrigger" (The main hull is a dugout with high washstrakes stitched in place)

"Solomon (Islands): Canoe with bird shaped bow" (Somewhat similar to the full-size canoe that serves as the exhibit's centerpiece.)

"Fiji: Sailing boat" (Twin-hull canoe with oceanic lateen sail)

(Same model as previous. The port hull is much smaller and shorter than the starboard, but it is nonetheless a true hull, not an outrigger float.)

"Chile; Alakaluf Canoe" (This looks much like the Yamana/Yaghan canoe we've written about previously.)

"Alaska: Canoe" (Adney called this a "kayak-form canoe.")

"Chile: Yaghan (Yamana) canoe" (Images created by Europeans show greatly different forms of Yaghan or Yamana canoes. See the Alakaluf canoe two images above.)

"Canada: Canoe" (...and a rather fanciful one at that! We're not aware of any bark canoes built with full decks and a round cockpit coaming. The modeler seems to be combining aspects of the open bark canoe with the skin-on-frame kayaks of Alaska.)

"Brazil: Caraja river boat" (The cargo of what appears to represent a dugout canoe is probably tortoises or sea turtles. At the right is a pregnant woman; at the left, a baby.)

background: "Canada: Canoe"
foreground: "Alaska: Bark canoe"

"Bolivia: Mosetenes raft" (A double-hull raft. Perhaps it is built to be separated, so that it can be used as two smaller craft.)

"Peru - Bolivia: Ayamara boat"(A reed boat of the type used on Lake Titicaca.)

background: "Rocky Mountains: Canoe"
foreground: "USA: Canoe"
(Both are birchbark types.)

background: "Madagascar: Dugout canoe"
middle-right: "Madagascar: Dugout canoe"
left: "...West Coast" (presumably Africa; we failed to capture the full label text)
front-right: "Madagascar: Dugout canoe"

"Mozambique: Raft" (We'd call this a coracle, not a raft, since it relies on the enclosure of space for buoyancy. The model is made from a single piece of bent bark. If the full-size boat is built the same way, it must be quite small, or else it requires an enormously wide tree.)

"Africa - East Coast: Sailing boat with outrigger" (The main hull is extraordinarily narrow and highly rockered. This must be a thrilling boat to sail.)

background: "Congo: Canoe with rower" (a paddler, in fact)
foreground: "Congo: Canoe"

background: "Nigeria: Boat with two rowers" (paddlers)
middle: "Nigeria: Boat with passengers"
front: "Nigeria: Boat with passengers"
(All three represent dugouts with an aft platform carved as an integral part of the hull for the stern paddler/helmsman. Locating the paddle force so far aft of the submerged part of the hull lends a great deal of power for turning and correcting strokes, making these boats highly maneuverable.) 

"Nigeria: Yoruba boats: H.E. Mons, Carlo Maria Viganò" (These were the only models in the exhibit credited to whom we assume was the donor or lender.)

A nice selection of canoe paddles were exhibited at the end of each of the spiral levels of the hall, unfortunately with no exhibit cards or other identification. (This photo by Cate Monroe)

A closer look at the paddles on the middle level.

(All images by the blogger except as noted.)