154 Professor A. G. Haddon [May 23, 



The large canoes of the Torres Straits Islander of former times 

 must have been very imposing objects when painted with red, white, 

 and black, and decorated with w'hite shells, black feathers, and 

 flying streamers ; and not less so when actively paddled by a noisy, 

 gesticulating, naked crew, adorned with cassowary coronets, shell 

 ornaments, and other native finery ; or swiftly sailing, scudding 

 before the wind with mat sails erect. 



The body of a canoe is a simple dug-out, on to the sides of which 

 gunwale boards are lashed. There is a central platform supported 

 on a double outrigger. The thwart jjoles of the outriggers are 

 usually six feet apart, and extend to some ten feet beyond the stem of 

 the canoe ; a doubly-pointed float is attached to the ends of the 

 thwart poles on each side. Eecejitacles are built into each side of 

 the platform for the storage of bows and arrows, fishing gear, water- 

 bottles, and other belongings. 



The sails are two in number, and are obloncf erections of mattinor 

 placed in the bows, some twelve feet in height, and each about five 

 feet wide. The mats are skewered on to two long bamboos, which 

 suj^poit the sails along their length ; a bamboo stay also serves to 

 keep the sail upright. 



The longest canoe I measured was nearly sixty-eight feet in 

 length. A stone lashed on to a rope is kept in the bow for an 

 anchor. When sailing, a man stands in the stern holding the 

 steering board. 



The canoes are made at the mouth of the Fly River, in New 

 Guinea, and are fitted with but a single outrigger, as theirs is only 

 river navigation. I was informed that it was at Saibai that the canoes 

 were refitted, this time with two outriggers, and an attempt at 

 decoration was made, but the latter having a purely commercial 

 significance was rather scant. The ultimate purchasers ornamented 

 their canoes according to their fancy, as they usually j)rided them- 

 selves on having fine canoes. 



I was much puzzled when I first went to Torres Straits by 

 occasionally seeing a canoe with a single outrigsfer. I afterwards 

 found it belonged to a native of Ware (one of the New Hebrides) 

 residing at Mabuiag, and that he had re-outrigged a native canoe 

 according to the fashion of his own people. When I was staying 

 at Mabuiag some natives of that island were fitting up a canoe in 

 imitation of this one. Here a foreign custom is being copied ; how 

 far it will spread among the Western Tribe it is impossible to say ; but, 

 strangely enough, the Eastern Tribe has entirely adopted an intro- 

 duced fashion, and I did not see a solitary canoe with a double 

 outrigger. It would be tedious to enter into a comparison between 

 these various canoes. In the Eastern Islands the platform baskets 

 are absent, and Europern sails are in universal use — mainsail, fore- 

 sail, and jib. Among the Western Tribe, European sails have not 

 yet quite supi)lanted the original mat sails. Throughout the Straits 



