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.