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.)

Sailing Cargo Rafts of Ecuador and Peru

Early European explorers and exploiters on the western coast of South America reported that native people were making lengthy sea voyages, conducting trade between Lima, Peru, and Guayaquil, Ecuador, (over 700 statute miles as the crow flies), and as far as Panama (almost 800 miles further) on a regular basis. And they were doing it with rafts of balsa wood.

("Balsa" was the common South American term for raft, the term also being applied to rafts of reed and of hollow gourds. Balsa wood, it appears, was so named because it was "raft wood.")

The "hulls" of these ocean-going rafts were substantial. They always consisted of an odd number of logs, and often had some degree of taper. Sometimes it was just the central log that extended forward of all the others; at other times, each log was shorter than the one inboard of it, so that the entire bow had a stepped wedge shape. In some cases, the stern was step-wedge shaped as well.

Above the hull's main logs were several cross-pieces of diameter roughly equal to the main logs, the whole being lashed together with rope. Then above the cross-pieces, there was plank decking and often a house of two or even three decks. In the lowest compartment would be stored anchor rocks and water containers. The second level was crew quarters. The top level was for cargo that needed to be kept dry. The height of the decks in the house was only about four feet. The whole hull structure weighed so much that, laden, the main logs would often "float" two or three feet beneath the surface.


a. Balsa raft recorded by Admiral Paris, 1841. Length about 30 meters; beam 8-10 meters. Note tapered hull shape, multiple daggerboards, deckhouse, and squaresail on bipod mast. Click this or any image for a larger view.

The illustration above was made in 1841 -- some centuries after first contact – but it gives a good idea of the structure. Its length was 30 meters; beam was 8-10 meters. Although the raft in this illustration has nine logs, rafts with "20 or 30 great Trees of about 20, 30, or 40 foot long" that could carry cargoes of 60-70 tons were reported in the 1680s.

At one time, anthropologists and historians disputed whether aboriginal South Americans had sails on their rafts prior to European contact, but this question seems to have been pretty soundly answered, as sailing rafts were recorded by Europeans within just a few years of first contact, and it seems highly unlikely that sails would have been adopted so quickly. Furthermore, the method of steering was one unknown to Europeans at that time, and if the sail had been adopted from them, it seems certain that the rudder would have been as well.

Instead of a rudder, South American sailing rafts were steered by multiple daggerboards (incorrectly called either "centerboards" or "leeboards" in my sources). There were typically three or more; aft, athwart of the mast, and forward. By selectively raising or lowering the boards fully or partially between the hull logs, the underwater center of resistance could be changed.

Assuming that the sail's center of effort remained fixed, one would turn upwind by lowering the forward boards and raising the aft ones. This would allow the stern of the raft to blow downwind, while the deployed boards forward would allow the bow to resist doing so, leaving the bow pointing more into the wind than the stern. To turn downwind, one would raise the forward boards and lower the aft ones.

Once it was settled in the Indians' favor that they did indeed have sails, the next question in dispute was the nature of the sail: square or triangular. Both had been noted (not always unambiguously) by Europeans within a couple hundred years of first contact, but it appears that the triangular sail was the aboriginal design, and that this was displaced by the square sail fairly soon after European contact. Although variations were noted, the aboriginal rig seems to have been comparable the Oceanic sprit rigs of the Pacific – which can lead to all sorts of unprofitable arguments (which I'll avoid) about the diffusion of technology eastward or westward across the Pacific.

The later square sail was typically set on a pair of shears, or a bipod mast, as shown. With the triangular sail probably being the more weatherly one, the reason for the switch to the square sail is a mystery. Eventually, the squaresail and bipod mast were replaced by the handier and more weatherly European-style lugsail hoisted on a single mast. But even with the adoption of the European-style sails, daggerboard steering remained the norm.

b. An image from 1619, showing crew manipulating three daggerboards; two masts with triangular sails, anchor stones on foredeck. Note the curved masts are two-part, and the sails have no boom or lower sprit.

c. Guayaquil raft in 1748; much smaller than Admiral Paris's raft. Details of the rig include the shears or bipod mast, backstays, what may be a forestay, and a bowsprit-like spar that serves as a bowline.

Many early European observers were impressed and surprised by the speed and weatherliness of these apparently primitive craft – qualities that no doubt contributed to their continued use into the modern age. The last cargo raft recorded on South America's Pacific coast was seen in the Gulf of Guayaquil in 1925.

(Sources: The Sea-Craft of Prehistory, Paul Johnstone; Aboriginal Watercraft on the Pacific Coast of South America, Clinton R. Edwards)
(Images: a. from Johnstone; b, c. from Edwards)

An American Source for Peruvian Dugouts

John Waymire is an American who has figured out how to make a living from dugout canoes. Waymire runs BioBio.com, a site offering "Ethnographic crafts and tools from the Amazon Rainforest for zoos, museums, and collectors." Prominent among those crafts and tools are dugout canoes and paddles (along with blowguns, baskets, masks, clothing, and decorative items).

As John describes it: "Over the years I've done a lot of traveling. During one journey I found myself in Iquitos, Peru, on the Amazon River. Near Iquitos I purchased two dugout canoe paddles and took them back to the States. My friend, who has an antique store, was taken with these paddles and wished he could have more.

"The next year I returned to Iquitos, and had a crate made and filled it with paddles for my friend and others. I had some space left over so I packed a small canoe -- right for a small kid. My friend purchased all these pieces and that motivated me to try to sell more canoes and to return to Iquitos."

John now travels to Peru regularly, buying canoes and other items on the rivers and in the villages near Iquitos. His clients – mainly museums and zoos -- prefer authentic, contemporary artifacts to those made for the export or tourist trades. He therefore looks for canoes "that have been well-used and often repaired with whatever the fisherman could find -- sometimes even modern materials like nails and tin."

John also avoids buying antiques and items that are built in traditional ways but no longer in use in the culture, concentrating instead on items that accurately reflect the present-day culture from which they come. In an attempt to deal fairly within the local economy without changing its nature, he limits his buying to a very few items in any one place, so as to avoid giving local people an incentive to abandon their existing economic activity (farming or fishing, for example) in favor of manufacturing "authentic" goods for sale. His admirable statement of buying ethics appears here.

"Most of these canoes are not associated with a tribe," he says. "They're made by riberenos, people who make their livelihood along the river, but have moved from tribal villages generations ago. Around Iquitos there are, however, a few villages of Yaguas and Bora people who are trying to maintain their cultural identity. I have purchased canoes from these indigenous people and hope to continue in the future."

In addition to museums and zoos, John also sells to a few private individuals. Most of these are serious collectors, but he says that a couple of private buyers use their dugout canoes on the water, including "one lady [who] paddles hers to work."

Boats at the Hudson Anthropology Museum, #1

The Hudson Museum a brand new museum associated with the department of anthropology at the University of Maine, Orono (near Bangor). Rather small, it nonetheless has fine exhibits, is well worth a visit, and has a surprising number of boat-related artifacts on display.

I'll try to cover several of their boat artifacts in a series of posts. For now, we'll look at an interesting ceramic boat model from the Salinar culture of Peru's Moche Valley.

I'll quote the exhibit signage:

Salinar Stirrup Vessel, c. 500-2000 BC

The Salinar were precursors of the Vicus, developing in Moche Valley. The vessel depicts a man on a reed raft,  similar to the ones studied by Thor Heyerdahl and used as models for Kon-Tiki.

I don't quite follow the Kon-Tiki reference, since that raft was made of logs, not bundles of reeds. The model's shape is reminiscent of a reed float composed of one longer central bundle flanked by two shorter bundles. It's also quite reminiscent of a log jaganda -- a Brazilian raft-boat that I've blogged about several times. I'm not suggesting that the model depicts a jaganda -- only noting the similarity.

This isn't just a simple model, however. It's a "whistling jar," a noisemaker or musical instrument of a type made in a great variety of styles and designs by this culture, depicting people, animals, vegetables, and in abstract designs. The diagram below shows how it works.

Since the labels are not easy to read, I'll repeat them in clockwise order, starting at the top:
12:00 Insufficient air supply
2:00 Vacuum that pulls back air bubbles
6:00 Water that is passing into the second chamber is interrupted by returning air
8:00 Second chamber
9:00 Water level
9:30 (inside jar): Returning air
11:00 (top) Escaping air
11:00 (bottom) Whistle