Porter's Voyage 



valley, and divided, perhaps, among twenty families. Each has 

 the right of disposing of the part belonging to him, and when she 

 is to be set up, every one brings his piece, with materials for 

 securing it. The setting up a war canoe goes on with the same 

 order and regularity as all their other operations. These canoes 

 are owned only among the wealthy and respectable families, and 

 are rarely used for the purposes of war or for pleasure, or when 

 the chief persons of one tribe make a visit to another. In such 

 cases they are richly ornamented with locks of human hair in- 

 termixed with bunches of gray beard, strung from the stem 

 projection to the place raised for the steersman. These orna- 

 ments are in the greatest estimation among them, and a bunch 

 of gray beard is in tlieir view what the feathers of the ostrich, 

 or heron, or the richest plumage would be m ours. The seat of 

 the coxswain is highly ornamented with palm leaves and white 

 cloth ; he is gaily dressed and richly ornamented with plumes. 

 The chief is seated on an elevation in the middle of the canoe, 

 and a person fancifully dressed in the bow, which has the addi- 

 tional ornaments of pearl-shells strung on cocoa-nut branches 

 raised in the forepart of the canoe. She is worked altogether 

 by paddles, and those who use them are placed, two on a seat, 

 and give their strokes with great regularity, shouting occasionally 

 to regulate the time and encourage one another. These vessels, 

 when collected in a fleet and in motion, with all their rowers ex- 

 erting themselves, have a splendid and warlike appearance. 

 They were paraded repeatedly for my inspection, and in all 

 the reviews they appeared greatly to pride themselves on the 

 beauty and splendour of their men of war. They are not, how- 

 ever, so fleet as might be expected, as our whale boats could beat 

 them with great ease. 



Their fishing canoes are vessels of a larger and fuller con- 

 struction, many of them being six feet in width, and of an 

 equal depth. They are managed with paddles more resem- 

 bling an oar, and are, in some measure, used as such, but in a 

 perpendicular position, the fulcrum resting on the outriggers 

 projecting from each side. With those they proceed to the 

 small bays on the coast, where they fish with the scoop net, and 

 with the hook and line. They have also smaller canoes, which 

 are commonly nothing more than the hollow keels of the large 

 ones, after the upper works are taken off ; these are furnished 

 with outriggers, and are used for fishing about the harbour. The 

 canoes used for the purpose of navigating from one island to 

 another, a navigation very common, are similar in their con- 

 struction to the larger kind of fishing canoes, and are secured 

 two together by beams lashed across. These are called double ca- 

 noes, and are furnished with a triangular sail made of a mat, simi* 



