Australian Bark Craft, Canoes and Otherwise

A few weeks ago I presented material from Edwin Doran on the bark canoes of Australia. I can now elaborate on that a bit, based on images from Paul Johnstone's The Sea-Craft of Prehistory.

Doran's line drawing of an Australian canoe that was built by bunching and tying the ends of a half-tube of bark was obviously based on this fine early 19th-century engraving, from Lesueur and Petit's Atlas to Peron's "Voyage of Discovery." (I've transcribed the name of the source verbatim from Johnstone's caption, but unfortunately, there is no bibliography or footnote citation for this source.) In the engraving, one can see thwarts, and ties (probably bark) running across the boat, from shear to shear just above the thwarts, , but no gunwale members, ribs, or other structure. The Aboriginal people paddling in the background provide scale, showing that this was a small two-man canoe indeed. They are paddling with single-handed paddles, and they have a small fire going amidships. In the background, a man is carrying a similar boat above his head. From the abundance of ducks and other waterfowl in the image, one can safely speculate that the canoes were used for waterfowling, egg collecting, or both.

My earlier blog included Doran's description of the bark rafts of Tasmania, which stated that they were extremely temporary craft, becoming waterlogged in about six hours. Here's an image, from the same source as the above image, by way of Johnstone.

As Johnstone notes, these are similar in design to bundled-reed floats that were used widely in many cultures around the world, the Peruvian caballito pictured just a couple posts ago being an example. But given their short working life, Johnstone seems justified in calling them among the most primitive of craft. I have no information on what material was used to bind them together, nor on the type of bark used in the bundles.

Again, the two paddlers in the background show that this is a very small tandem craft, and it doesn't look particularly stable either. They carry poles, but apparently no paddles, and a pair of poles appear in the foreground as well. As any modern canoe poler can attest, however, poles can serve entirely adequately to propel a boat in deep water, as their projected area under water is often not much less than that of a paddle blade.

Headhunters' Dugout

My son came home from the library the other day with four books of Gary Larson cartoons. Of course I read them, seeking enlightening content for this blog and for no other reason. Lo, behold and eureka, I discovered that Larson was indeed a fan of dugout canoes.

Note the gracefully upturned prow, the refined flat sheer, and the very regular hull thickness along the gunwale, evidence of careful, sophisticated workmanship. It's also interesting to see the awkward way that that the paddlers hold the paddles, grasping the shaft several inches below what appears to be a very workable grip. It's regrettable that Larson did not identify the culture of these knuckleheadhunters.

Random Boats of Chile and Peru

I'm able to respond in part to a recent request for information on boats of Chile, Argentina and Tierra del Fuego, based on my current reading of The Sea-Craft of Prehistory by Paul Johnstone. Nothing in here about Argentina, for which I'm sorry, but here are some stray bits of information that I hope will be useful, and I'll throw in something about Peru to make up for it.


Log rafts have been used all around the world and were probably among the earliest of all boat forms in most cultures. An odd feature is the near-universal use of an odd number of logs: 3, 5, 7 or more, and the common use of longer logs in the middle of the group. It seems as though the earliest boat builders were already envisioning the rudimentary boat shape, with a pointed bow, as shown in this pre-Columbian raft model found near Arica, Chile.

The model appears to be lashed together which, one would assume, replicated the original. Slightly more sophisticated raft construction involves pegging the logs together, sometimes boring a whole straight through all the logs at both ends and forcing poles through the holes to produce a more rigid structure than is possible by mere binding.

Keeping with the raft theme, here is a vessel built of two inflated sealskin pontoons, held together by a light cane framework and platform. Note how the narrow "bow" is formed by drawing the two pontoons together at their forward ends, allowing the aft ends to splay apart. The illustration was made in the early 19th century in Valparaiso, Chile, but similar rafts were observed as early as 1587 on the west coast of South America from 10 to 35 south latitude.

The Yahgan people of Tierra del Fuego were the southernmost population in the world at the time of European contact. They were known as the Canoe Indians, and their bark canoes were attractive and sophisticated -- more so than the bark canoes of Australia, but perhaps not as refined as those of North America. (The bark canoes of the nearby Alacaluf people, living on the Strait of Magellan in Chile, were similar.) These were big canoes, typically 24 to 26 feet, and occasionally more than 30.

Bark for these canoes was stripped from the tree using only sharpened flint tools. The bottom piece was laid on the ground with stones under the bow and stern and left for a few days to impart rocker, then side pieces were sewn on with reed stitching, straw and mud being used as caulking in the seams. Numerous bent frames were inserted, and the top ends were lashed to heavy gunwales, which were heat-bent previous to installation. A light framework was installed about 6" above the bottom and covered over with sticks laid crosswise to serve as decks fore and aft, the center area being left undecked for cargo, access for bailing, or both. Although the description quoted in Johnstone doesn't mention it, several thwarts were also installed. One would assume that these were purely structural and were not used as seats.

These canoes were typically paddled by women. The Yahgans adopted a rudimentary squaresail after European contact, setting up a temporary pole and yard forward and using a section of sealskin, held down in the hands at the lower corners, for downwind work.

Johnstone believed that the reed bundle raft may be as early as, if not earlier than, the log raft -- possibly the earliest of all boat types. In Peru, the caballito ("little horse") is a two-bundle reed float used to this day for shore fishing, although I suspect that tourism is more responsible for its persistence than any real economics of fishing. The paddler typically kneels in the cockpit, aft, and it is said that their surfing capabilities are impressive.

(Final photo public domain by Allard Schmidt, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. All others from Johnstone. Click any photo to enlarge.)