Canoes as Agents of Migration in Guyana

I gave this presentation on the theme of migration on 25 September, 2024, as part of the observances of Amerindian Heritage Month in Guyana. The webinar was sponsored jointly by the University of Guyana's Amerindian Research Unit and the International Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies.

The basic argument is that dugout canoes were instrumental not only in the movement of the first people into Guyana, but also to their ability to settle and thrive there, and that canoes remained central to migrations throughout prehistory and the historic period. 

I am providing the presentation as a PDF. You can read it in your browser's PDF extension or download it. If you download it and see only the slides after opening in Acrobat, click the "Review Comments" button in the upper right corner to see the full script.

Read or download Canoes as Agents of Migration in Guyana.

Fishing Sampans in Taiwan - free download

A Taiwanese fishing raft of bamboo construction (Han-po Liu, 1963, fig. 37).

Fishing Sampans in Taiwan by Han-po Liu (1963), a wonderful little book published by the Taiwan Fisheries Bureau, is now available on our page of free downloads of complete books about vernacular watercraft of China and southeast Asia. 

Published as a dual-language (Chinese and English) edition, Fishing Sampans in Taiwan includes not only sampans per se, but also small junk-style boats and rafts. It begins with a summary of the island's fishing fleet and description of types, including numbers of powered and unpowered boats and their catches, general construction features, design coefficients, geographic distributions, fishing methods, and losses by type, It then presents the boats themselves, organised by district, using photos and good-quality construction and lines plans.

Many thanks to the contributor who wishes to remain anonymous for the scans of this book.

Construction plan of a bamboo fishing raft (Han-po Liu, 1963, fig. 44).

NOTE: A previous version of this post named the scans' contributor incorrectly.

Worcester's "Floating Population in China" Now Online

A Hong Kong "beggar boat" -- a sampan that is home to a family (Worcester, 1970, p.5)

Indigenous Boats is pleased to make available for free download The Floating Population in China by G.R.G. Worcester, with sketches by Doris Worcester. The scan was made available to us by the generosity of Alexey Shapovalov, a talented Russian model builder who mainly works on sailing vessels from China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. 

The full title of the work is a very descriptive handful: The Floating Population in China: An illustrated record of the junkmen and their boats on sea and river, accompanied by Some Chungking Types on the Upper Yangtze River. Although full of technical detail, like his other books on Chinese watercraft (also available for free download), The Floating Population is more concerned with the boat people and their water-borne activities, and Doris Worcester's lovely sketches give it an altogether more "personal" feel. Although sof the sketches seem to perpetuate negative Western stereotypes of Chinese people, it is generally respectful and appreciative of the culture of the time.

A Liu-p'eng ch'uan (six-mat) or Paper Boat, so-called because one of its typical cargoes is paper (Worcester, 1970, p.17).