NAMES OF CANOES, 
155 
on the mind of the beholder. I have often thought, 
when I have seen a fleet of thirty or forty ap» 
proaching the shore, that they exhibited no faint 
representation of the ships in which the Argonauts 
sailed, or the vessels that conveyed the heroes of 
Homer to the Trojan shores. 
Every large canoe had a distinct name, always 
arbitrary, but frequently descriptive of some real 
or imaginary excellence in the canoe, or in memory 
of some event connected with it. Neither the 
names of any of their gods, or chiefs, were ever 
given to their vessels ; such an act, instead of 
being considered an honour, would have been 
deemed the greatest insult that could have been 
offered. The names of canoes, in some instances, 
appear to have been perpetuated, as the king’s 
state canoe was always called Anuanua, or the 
rainbow. The most general and useful kind of 
canoe is the tipairua, or common double canoe, 
usually from twenty to thirty feet long, strong and 
capacious, with a projection from the stem, and a 
low shield-shaped stern. These are very valuable, 
and usually form the mode of conveyance for every 
chief of respectability or influence, in the island. 
They are also used to transport provisions, or other 
goods, from one place to another. 
One of these, in which we voyaged to Afareaitu 
soon after our arrival, was between thirty and forty 
feet in length, strong, and, as a piece of native 
workmanship, well built. The keel was formed 
with a number of pieces of tough tamanu wood, 
inophyllum callophyllum, twelve or sixteen inches 
broad, and two inches thick, hollowed on the 
inside, and rounded without, so as to form a con¬ 
vex angle along the bottom of the canoe; these 
were fastened together by lacings of tough elastic 
