Ut< CANOES. 



no general use of tliis contrivance. Bishop Patteson in 18GG was 

 surprised to see on the St. Christoval coast an outrigger canoe which 

 had been built by the natives after the model of a canoe that had 

 been drifted over from Santa Cruz some 3'ears before.^ He says that 

 the natives found it more serviceable than their own canoes for 

 catching large fish : yet in 1882 after a lapse of sixteen years, we 

 found no signs of this style of canoe having been adopted by the St. 

 Christoval natives. It seems to me that the explanation of the out- 

 rigger canoe not being generally employed by the natives of these 

 islands lies in the arrangement of the larger islands of this group in 

 a double line enclosing a comparatively sheltered sea 350 miles in 

 length, which is, to a great extent, protected from the ocean swell. 

 Thus, the head-hunting voyages of the New Georgia natives to the 

 eastward, which may extend to Malaita 150 miles distant, are 

 entirely confined to these sheltered waters. The passages .between 

 Maiaita and the eastern islands, which I have referred to above, are, 

 however, in great part exposed ; but they are only undertaken in 

 very settled weather. 



On account of the frequent communication which is kept up 

 between the different islands of Bougainville Straits, where open-sea 

 passage of from 15 to 25 miles have to be performed, the larger 

 canoes are in more common use and in greater number than in the 

 eastern islands of the group. These large canoes vary in length be- 

 tween 40 and 50 feet, are between S-} and 4 feet in beam, can carry 

 from 18 to 25 men, and are paddled double-banked. They are stoutly 

 built with three lines of side-planking and two narrow planks form- 

 ing the bottom of the canoe : all the planks are bevelled off at their 

 edges and are brought, or rather sewn, together by narrow strips of 

 the slender stems of a pretty climbing fern {Lygonia sp.), the 

 " asama " of the natives, which have the pliancy and strength of 

 rattan. The seams are caulked with the same resinous material that 

 is emploj'ed for this purpose in the eastern islands, and is obtained 

 from the brown nearly spheiical fruits of the " tita " of the native 

 the P'trhtarium laurinum of the botanist.^ 



The natives of Boug'ainville Straits do not decorate their canoes 

 to any great extent ; and in this they differ from those of St. 

 Christoval, who, as I have remarked, ornament the prows and gun- 



1 "Life of Bishop Patteson," p. 126 (S.P.C.K. pub.). 



■- The resin c!f this fruit is used for the same purpose in Isabel and probably throughout the 

 group. It is similarly used in the Admiralty Islands. Narrative of the " Challenger," page 710. 



