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.

Canoes as Agents of Migration in Guyana

(Click image to watch video on YouTube)

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. 

In addition to the video, I am also providing the presentation as a PDF of the slide deck, which you can download or read in your browser's PDF extension. If you don't see the text after downloading, click the "Review Comments" button in the upper right corner.

Watch the video on YouTube

Read or download the PDF

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).

Book review: Classic Wooden Fishing Boats of the Vietnamese Coast

Classic Wooden Fishing Boats of the Vietnamese Coast: Their Design, Construction, Rigging and Fisheries

by Ken Preston

2019

328 pages

Vietnam Women’s Publishing House, Ha Noi

ISBN 978-604-56-7858-9 

When Ken Preston served in the US Army in Vietnam, he saw little of the country’s vernacular boats. But decades after the US withdrawal and the end of the war, he travelled back to Vietnam for pleasure and was fascinated by the variety of boats he saw and their methods of construction. Starting in 2005, he returned year after year, spending weeks at a time traveling the country on a small motorcycle, taking thousands of photos of boats and boatyards, and talking to boatbuilders and fishermen. His book, Classic Wooden Fishing Boats of the Vietnamese Coast, is the result, and a fine one it is.

The book is organized unconventionally but with an undeniable logic. The very brief first chapter, “Wooden Boats and Nautical Culture in Vietnam, Past and Present”, is more like a second Introduction, barely mentioning thousands of years of boat history prior to the middle of the 20^th century. From that time forward, though, it describes how the local fleet was documented by French colonial observers and, later, by the US government, and how it changed rapidly to leave behind much of its traditional roots and adopt larger, more Western-like designs and diesel engine power.

The book really hits its stride in Chapter 2, “Vietnamese Wooden Boat Designs,” which describes the basic structure of traditional wooden fishing boats, some of which are still in use, and contrasts it to the structure of newer, larger “modern fishing vessels” (MFVs). The latter, although constructed plank-on-frame by methods not dissimilar to Western methods, are still different enough in design from Western vessels to be of interest. The chapter also discusses how traditional and modern methods are sometimes combined, and shows how even fairly large boats are built in temporary and ad-hoc shipyards with a minimum of tools and infrastructure. The building sequences for both types of vessels are described and illustrated in good detail.              

A boatbuilder fitting the port side planks of a traditional fishing boat. The fully-assembled side will later be lifted and attached to the already-framed bottom, visible in the background.

Chapter 3, “Seagoing Baskets,” looks at small fishing boats where part or all of the hull is formed of split bamboo basketwork. Some readers may be familiar with Vietnam’s iconic round basket boats that may be paddled, rowed or – surprisingly often – powered with small outboard or even inboard engines (see previous post on round basket boats). Less well known are small canoe-shaped basket boats with light bamboo gunwales (see previous post for more on these narrow basket boats) and larger, oval-hulled basket boats built with heavy rectangular frameworks of full-round bamboos around their top perimeter, many with cabins, also of basketwork (see previous post on round basket boats of Tonkin Bay). Then there are even larger, heavier open boats, almost indiscernible from plank-built boats due to the substantial strakes that sheath their topsides (see cover image at top).

These large, round basket boats have inboard engines. Boats like this are used both for beach fishing and as dinghies for larger fishing boats. 

Chapter 4, “Boat Building techniques” takes the reader step-by-step through the main procedures of wooden hull construction, with excellent detail on tools and tool-use techniques. Chapter 5, “Modern Fishing Gear on the Vietnamese Coast”, describes the many methods of fishing practiced, including drift nets, seines, lift- or dip-nets (called “push aheads” due to their mounting on the bow of boats), longlines, squid gear, and more. Preston describes which boat types employ which types of gear and the basics of their use.

Comprising just shy of half the book’s page count, “A Trip Up the Coast: From Phu Quoc Island to Mong Cai” is the final chapter. It is a valuable “moment-in-time” record of boat building facilities and fishing boat use in dozens of major and minor fishing ports. Because Preston visited some of the ports numerous times over the course of years, he has sometimes documented the pace of change and shown how quickly Vietnam is developing in some areas.

Classic Wooden Fishing Boats of the Vietnamese Coast is a lovely, coffee-table size volume, produced entirely in color, and wisely formatted in landscape mode, which is by far the better choice for presenting photos of boats and ships. Preston’s photos are lively and colorful, and most do an excellent job illustrating the matter at hand. For the few that don’t come up to that standard, anyone familiar with photographing industrial workplaces will acknowledge that ideal composition and lighting can be elusive, and Preston has done a fine job working in challenging conditions. One must admire his dedication to the project and the opportunities he made for himself to hang around boatyards and gam with builders and fishermen. He has produced a valuable body of ethnographic data that captures fishing and boatbuilding practices as they were during the early 21^st century and will never be again.

Given its value to vernacular boat students and enthusiasts, it is unfortunate that Classic Wooden Fishing Boats of the Vietnamese Coast is so difficult to obtain. It was published only in Vietnam and never properly distributed in the West. One hopes a Western publisher will pick it up someday or that it will be made available by other means.

 

Download Worcester's Crooked Junks, Free

A crooked-stern salt junk of Fowchow, from Worcester, G. (1941) Notes on the Crooked-bow and Crooked-stern Junks of Szechwan, following p.36.

Among the most unusual Chinese watercraft are those described by G.R.G. Worcester in Notes on the Crooked-bow and Crooked-stern Junks of Szechwan (1941, Inspector General of Customs [Shanghai]), now available for free download here. 

Different configurations of crooked sterns, from Worcester, 1941, plate 13.

Both types were used as transporters for the salt industry, with the crooiked-bow type being specially adapted to running a tortuous and twisting whitewater river, as shown in the image below. The junks were controlled by a huge sweep aft when running downriver, and were hauled by lines when travelling upstream

The salt junk's path through a risky section of river, from Worcester, 1941, plate 8.

Worcester devotes much attention to the salt industry itself, describing its technology and economics, before turning to the vessels. As in his other works on Chinese junks and sampans (see more free downloads), he scrupulously documents the boats' structures, as in the next image. But he also describes in detail the boats' handling and the "domestic" lives on the crew when aboard.

Method of fastening plank to wale on a salt junk, from Worcester, 1941, following p.42.

In addition to the two larger junks named in the book's title are plans and descriptions of two smaller vessels: the Tzeliutsing salt sampan and ferry sampan.

Many thanks to the contributor who provided this document so that we could make it available as a free resource.

Classification of Junks by Worcester - Free Download

Bow typology of Chinese junks, from A Classification of the Principal Chinese Sea-going Junks by Worcester (1948).

Continuing our series of free downloads of books about Asian watercraft, we are pleased to offer the useful A Classification of the Principal Chinese Sea-going Junks (South of the Yangtze), by G.R.G. Worcester, made available to us by a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous. The book was published by China's Inspectorate General of Customs in 1948. 

Focusing entirely on sailing craft, Worcester identifies 93 junk types in the area of study. Few of them are less than 50' (about 15m) LOA  and some are well over 100' (30m). His guide to identification relies on three main characteristics. In order of importance they are: bow shape; stern shape, and (surprisingly), decoration and color scheme, which, he says, are highly characteristic of the region in which each type is found. Also suprising is that he lists the rig as a characteristic of secondary importance, less significant in identification than color and decoration. His typology for the main bow types is shown above.

Each type is depicted on a two-page spread, with the left page bearing a profile drawing of the ship above the waterline, including its rig. The right-hand page is consistently formatted with details of design, locale, and usage, as shown in the example below.

Yencheng Trader-type junk, an example of the type descriptions in A Classification of the Principal Chinese Sea-going Junks by Worcester (1948).

Other books on Chinese and East Asian watercraft are available for free download on this page, including other works by Worcester.

Worcester's Upper Yangtze vessels - Free download

 

A river lifeboat, from Junks and Sampans of the Upper Yangtze (1940), by G.R.G. Worcester (Plate 9).

Junks and Sampans of the Upper Yangtze by G.R.G. Worcester (1940, published by the Inspector General of Customs of China) is now available for free download. It joins Worcester's other works on the traditional vessels of the Yangtze (Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze: Volume 1: Introduction: and Craft of the Estuary and Shanghai Area; and Volume 2:The Craft of the Lower and Middle Yangtze and Tributaries, on our page of downloads, where you'll find other books on Asian watercraft. The newest document was made available by an enthusiast who chooses to remain anonymous but to whom we are most grateful.

Like Volumes 1 and 2, the "Upper Yangtze" volume is a comprehensive survey of the traditional watercraft in the area under study, covering boat types, construction details, and fascinating descriptions of each boat type's design, history, and use. Worcester was an Englishman employed as a river inspector for China's Maritime Customs Service.

The Hung Ch'uan boat shown at the top, was a life boat. Dozens of these "red boats" (known as such for their characteristic color) were stationed along treacherous stretches of river, where they came to the aid of vessels in distress and saved hundreds of lives annually. The one shown measured 30' LOA by 7' beam. The characters on the flag identify its operator as "The Society for Rescuing Drowning People, Lower Section, Lungmenhao, South Bank, Chungking".

Tracking tackle and rigging, from Junks and Sampans of the Upper Yangtze (1940), by G.R.G. Worcester (Plate 4).

The second image shows the tackle used for tracking a boat upstream with a line made from braided strips of bamboo. The number of men hauling the tracking line could vary from one to hundreds, depending upon the size and weight of the boat and the speed and pitch of the current. Other illustrations in the book show sail rigs, rudder configurations, and comparative vessel profiles. It's well worth a look and a download. Enjoy!