chains of atolls some 2,000 miles southwest of 

 Hawaii. The sailing canoes built there are single out- 

 rigger types with an oceanic lateen (triangular) sail. 

 The canoe's lines and contours are dramatic because 

 of the hull's asymmetry and an outrigger system that 

 has both curved and straight booms. A testimonial to 

 this elegantly designed craft was recorded in 1824 in 

 the captain's log of the USS Dolphin: "Their canoes 

 display the greatest ingenuity and 1 have no doubt 

 that in any other country they would be ranked 

 amongst the rarest specimens of human industry. 

 They move through the water with astonishing veloc- 

 ity, and in turning to windward, no boats can surpass 

 them." 



The master of an early 19th-century schooner 

 must have had ample reason to be so lavish in his 

 praise, and we became even more convinced that a 

 Marshall Islands outrigger canoe was just what we 

 were after. 



In May of 1987, with assistance from the Alele 

 Museum of the Marshall Islands, I made a trip to 

 that island group to see about getting a canoe. As I 

 traveled among the atolls of Mili, Wotho, Ujae, Lae, 

 and Alinglapalap, I studied and documented canoes 

 currently in use. I also had long conversations at the 

 Alele Museum with Arento Lobo, a canoe-builder 

 and navigator from Kwajelein Atoll and with the 

 Rev. Kanaki Amlej, historian-in-residence at the 

 Alele Museum. With the kind and enthusiastic 



cooperation of these two canoe authorities, I gathered 

 information on the materials and construction of tra- 

 ditional canoes; 1 also gained insights into the ancient 

 and still-practiced art of navigating according to the 

 movement of ocean swells. 



During the next two years, with assistance from 

 the Alele Museum staff and the Marshall Islands gov- 

 ernment, Field Museum was able to acquire an outrig- 

 ger canoe on Jaluit Atoll. Through the good offices of 

 the Alele Museum, the canoe was donated to the 

 Field Museum, dismantled, created, and shipped to 

 the United States. It took eight weeks for the canoe 

 to reach the Museum, first by freighter to Seattle via 

 Honululu, then by semitrailer truck to Chicago. The 

 final leg of the trip was on the shoulders of eight Field 

 Museum Staff members, who carried the uncrated 

 canoe up the Museum's south steps. 



This past year, a footnote was added to the 

 canoe's historic odyssey: On September 15, the do- 

 nated outrigger's former owner, Jima Jimna, and 

 master canoe-builder Jenadde Leon flew from Jaluit to 

 Chicago to reassemble the canoe in the exhibit hall. 

 It has taken four years and 5,500 miles to see an idea 

 realized, but a Pacific journey from west to east has 

 been concluded in midwestem America. An outrigger 

 canoe that once sailed the waters of the Marshall 

 Islands has come to permanent rest at the Field 

 Museum in "Traveling the Pacific." 



Maori textile (88527) with incised canoe paddles on view in the exhibit. The top paddle Is from New Zealand, the others are from the 



Austral Islands, Ron Testa and Diane Alexander white 



