

1769 CARPENTRY AND CARVING 157 



large slabs of the wood, they certainly work more quickly, 

 owing to the weight of their tools. Those who are masters 

 of this business will take off a surprisingly thin coat from a 

 whole plank without missing a stroke. They can also work 

 upon wood of any shape as well as upon a flat piece, for in 

 making a canoe every piece, bulging or flat, is properly shaped 

 at once, as they never bend a plank ; all the bulging pieces 

 must be shaped by hand, and this is done entirely with 

 axes. They have also small axes for carving ; but all this 

 latter kind of work was so bad, and in so very mean a taste, 

 that it scarcely deserved that name. Yet they are very 

 fond of having carvings and figures stuck about their canoes, 

 the great ones especially, which generally have a figure of a 

 man at the head and another at the stern. Their marais 

 also are ornamented with different kinds of figures, one 

 device representing many men standing on each other's 

 heads. They have also figures of animals, and planks of 

 which the faces are carved in patterns of squares and circles, 

 etc. All their work, however, in spite of its bad taste, 

 acquires a certain neatness in finish, for they polish every- 

 thing, even the side of a canoe or the post of a house, with 

 coral-sand rubbed on in the outer husk of a cocoanut and 

 ray's skin, which makes it very smooth and neat. 



Their boats, all at least that I have seen of them, may 

 be divided into two general classes. The first, or ivahah, 

 are the only sort used at Otahite ; they serve for fishing 

 and for short trips to sea, but do not seem at all calculated 

 for long voyages ; the others, or pahie, are used by the 

 inhabitants of the Society Isles, viz. Ulhietea, Bola Bola, 

 Huahine, etc., and are rather too clumsy for fishing, for which 

 reason the inhabitants of those islands have also ivahahs. 

 The pahie are much better adapted for long voyages. The 

 figures below (p. 158) give a section of both kinds : Fig. 1 

 is the ivahah and Fig. 2 the pahie. 



To begin, then, with the ivahah. These differ very much 

 in length : I have measured them from 10 feet to 72 feet, but 

 by no means proportional in breadth, for while that of 1 feet 

 was about 1 foot in breadth, that of 72 feet was scarce 2 feet, 



