152 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
managing of the vessels one of the most general 
and important of their avocations. It also procures 
no small respect and endowment for the Tahua 
tarai vaa, builder of canoes. Vaa waa , or vaka , 
is the name of a canoe, in most of the islands of 
the Pacific ; though by foreigners they are uniform¬ 
ly called canoes, a name first given to this sort of 
boat by the natives of the Caribbean Islands,* and 
adopted by Europeans ever since, to designate the 
rude boats used by the uncivilized natives in every 
part of the world. 
The canoes of the Society Islanders are various, 
both in size and shape, and are double or single. 
Those belonging to the principal chiefs, and the 
public district canoes, were fifty, sixty, or nearly 
seventy feet long, and each about two feet wide, 
and three or four feet deep ; the sterns remarkably 
high, sometimes fifteen or eighteen feet above the 
water, and frequently ornamented with rudely 
carved hollow cylinders, square pieces, or grotesque 
figures, called tiis. The rank or dignity of a chief 
was supposed, in some degree, to be indicated by 
the size of his canoe, the carving and ornaments 
with which it was embellished, and the number of 
its rowers. 
Next in size to these was the pahi, or war canoe. 
I never saw but one of these : the stern was low, 
and covered, so as to afford a shelter from the 
stones and darts of the assailants; the bottom 
was round, the upper part of the sides narrower, 
* After his first interview with the natives of the newly- 
discovered islands, in the Caribbean sea, we are informed 
by Robertson, that Columbus returned to his ship, accom¬ 
panied by many of the islanders in their boats, which they 
called canoes ; and though rudely formed out of the trunk 
of a single tree, they rowed them with surprising dexterity. 
