Wa are traditional sailing outrigger canoes of the Caroline Islands, which also includes Palau and Yap. [1] They have a single outrigger. [1] [2] They are similar to the sakman of the Northern Marianas.
Wa are traditional sailing outrigger canoes of the Caroline Islands, which also includes Palau and Yap. [1] They have a single outrigger. [1] [2] They are similar to the sakman of the Northern Marianas.
Wa are proa — vessels with identical bow and stern, allowing the craft to reverse without turning. [A] They are made from hewn-out hulls, typically breadfruit trunks, [B] with single wide top-strakes, and carved head and stern pieces. [C] Sails are lateen rigged [D] and were traditionally made of pandanus mat sailcloth. [6] Benjamin Morrell recorded in the 1830s that sails were "made in small pieces of about three feet square, sewed together. In cutting the sail to its proper shape, the pieces which come off one side answer to go on the other; this gives it the proper form, and causes the halliards to be bent on in the middle of the yard." [E] After World War II sails switched to canvas, and after 1973 the use of dacron began to increase. [F]
Early accounts agreed upon "a lee-platform on the side opposite to the outrigger-frame, which also has a large platform of poles laid athwart its booms, whereon men are stationed to counterbalance any excessive heeling over toward the lee side when the wind increases in force". [2] The windward float stabilizes the craft. This occurs "by its weight rather than its buoyancy. When the float becomes submerged in a wave its increased drag swings the canoe slightly around into the wind, thereby relieving some of the wind pressure on the sail. The canoe slows down temporarily and allows the float to rise again." [G] This design feature also acts to reduce drift by tending to place the wind toward the beam or side of the craft. [H]
On Poluwat, the skill of canoe building is called héllap ("great rigging"), and different schools of canoe carpentry include hálinruk ("Rope of Truk") and hálinpátu ("Rope of the four Western Islands"). [I]
On Yap (at least the Yap Main Islands), canoes in general are known as m'uw. The open-ocean type with the two-pronged "tails" are called powpow (linguistically similar to the Polynesian paopao but different in design and purpose). While very similar in design to the wa of the rest of the Caroline Islands, one of the few distinctions between the two versions is the two-pronged tails; the Yap Main Islands' version tends to be a bigger ornament compared to the more wood-conservative version found in the tree-scarce atolls of the Carolines. [11]
Wa may be sailed over long distances, paddled, or moved by punting. [12] One analysis of wa under sail indicated "conclusively that these primitive craft are superior to a modern boat on significant points of sailing." [1] They were estimated by Anson in 1776 to be able to move at or perhaps beyond wind speed, and to have better windward pointing ability than any craft previously encountered. [J] Several early western observers stated they were "capable of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph) for sustained periods". [K] Edwin Doran, author of Wangka: Austronesian Canoe Origins (1981), cited a 14-knot (26 km/h; 16 mph) average for a wa traveling from Guam to Manila. [14] Benjamin Morrell reported in 1831 that he had "seen these boats going at the rate of eight miles per hour (13 km/h), within four points of the wind" and that he had "no doubt but they will go at the rate of twelve or thirteen [13 miles (21 km)] miles an hour in smooth water". [L]
In the past, voyages of 150 miles (240 km) across open ocean were commonplace, [1] and a "brisk trade" was carried on with the Mariana Islands to the north. [M] Trade items included shells, tapa cloth, wooden vessels, cordage, iron, copper, nails and knives. [N] Rai stones were brought from Palau to Yap. [O] Physical evidence of contact with the Chamorro people of Guam in the far southern Mariana Islands includes pestles, fish hooks, and shell rings from the Caroline Islands." [16] [17] The earliest documentary evidence is Friar Juan Cantova's 1721 letter to Friar William D'Aubenton in which he describes the June 19, 1721 landing of canoes from Woleai on Guam. [P] During the same Spanish colonial period, many Chamorro people died due to introduced disease or were forcibly relocated from Saipan to Guam, and Caroline Islanders emigrated to Saipan in their place. [Q] By 1788 fleets from the Caroline Islands were sailing to Guam near annually to trade in iron and other goods. [R] In the same year, a canoe from Woleai arrived at Guam and told the Spanish that "they had always been trading with Guam and had only discontinued their voyaging after witnessing the cruelty of the Europeans." [S]
In 1821, Adelbert von Chamisso recorded a voyage of 2,300 miles (3,700 km) from Yap to Aur Atoll in the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands. [T] Long voyages of at least 1,000 miles (1,600 km) between the Carolines, Philippines and Marianas were frequent. [U] A canoe from Satawal made a 500 miles (800 km) voyage to Saipan in 1970. [1] Star courses between islands were known on Puluwat for all major islands from Tobi, south-west of Palau, to Makin in the Gilbert Islands – clear evidence of repeated trips over various parts of this 3,000 miles (4,800 km)-long region. [1] According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, the Caroline Islands natives "who are Micronesian hybrids of finer physique than their kinsmen of the Pelew Islands, have a comparatively high mental standard, being careful agriculturists, and peculiarly clever boatbuilders and navigators." [19]
The captain of a sea-going canoe in the Central Carolines commands as aids to his navigation far more than knowledge of the mountain tops that rise just above the level of the sea to form the dozen or two dozen islands that he visits. To him, the ocean's surface is studded with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other things, whose names, locations, and relationships he knows, and which function as sea-marks for him. Some of them are real enough phenomena; some must seem to us to be in the realm of the fabulous. There are the islets, the reefs, the sandbanks; perhaps also the discoloured patch of water or the shark that is always to be found at a particular reef is also real; but then there are the two-headed whale, the hovering frigate bird with the plover constantly flying circles around it, the spirit who lives in a flame, the man in a canoe made of ferns. And all of these, the real islands and the fantastic monsters alike, are permanent geographical features; all of them are more or less useful sea-marks, all of them bear names, and all of them are seriously regarded—though not all are equally important—as navigational aids.
There are a larger number of stars grouped around the east–west axis of this navigation system – since the Caroline Islands are an east–west island chain, most voyages occur in those directions, and for seven to eight months of the year the dominant winds are north easterly. [V] These dominant winds are referred to as etiu-mai-rakena-efang (or "a wind coming from north of east"). [W]
According to the contentious [23] historian Andrew Sharp, earlier observers Otto von Kotzebue and Louis de Freycinet's information suggests that long distance voyaging was seasonally limited, that "the seasonal south-west monsoon was feared by the Caroline voyagers", that normal steady trade winds from the north-east were preferred, and that the boats – once turtled – were troublesome to right. [X]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York holds an artifact – called a "hos" that has a stylized human figure attached to Stingray spines (the purported sources of its power) – they describe as being used in "weather magic, believed to have the ability to prevent or alter the path of approaching storms", which is tentatively ascribed to Yap. [25] [26]
After the German–Spanish Treaty of 1899, inter-island voyaging was discouraged by the German New Guinea and Japanese colonial governments and by the commercial availability of trade goods. This discouragement was, however, not very effective. [Y]
A 1966 Peace Corps volunteer reported a fleet of 20 canoes of various sizes, that sailed from five islands within the Woleai atoll to greet an arriving ship, and stated there was only one motorboat at the time. By 1973, only a handful of the canoes were still actively sailed on Woleai, and there were more than 20 motorboats. In 1973 voyaging traditions were reportedly most alive on Satawal, Namonabetiu, and to a lessert extent Nanonuito and Ifalik. [Z]
"Long-distance noninstrument voyaging" was still practiced in the area in the late 1980s. [AA]
In 2012, the charity Habele and community-based organization Waa'gey were supporting younger outer-islanders from Lamotrek to gain experience in wa building. [AB] [AC]
A scale model Poluwat wa collected by David Lewis and Barry Lewis, father and son, in 1969 is held by the Australian National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia. [AD] A further, damaged, small scale model is also in Sydney at the Powerhouse Museum. [33]
Two additional models of wa craft from Yap, made before 1909, are held at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin in Germany. [34] [35]
Micronesia is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of approximately 2,000 small islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: Maritime Southeast Asia to the west, Polynesia to the east, and Melanesia to the south—as well as with the wider community of Austronesian peoples.
The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the central and eastern parts of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end. Historically, this area was also called Nuevas Filipinas or New Philippines, because they were part of the Spanish East Indies and were governed from Manila in the Philippines.
Hōkūleʻa is a performance-accurate waʻa kaulua, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe. Launched on 8 March 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, it is best known for its 1976 Hawaiʻi to Tahiti voyage completed with exclusively traditional navigation techniques. The primary goal of the voyage was to explore the anthropological theory of the Asiatic origin of native Oceanic people as the result of purposeful trips through the Pacific, as opposed to passive drifting on currents or sailing from the Americas. DNA analysis supports this theory. A secondary project goal was to have the canoe and voyage "serve as vehicles for the cultural revitalization of Hawaiians and other Polynesians."
The Micronesians or Micronesian peoples are various closely related ethnic groups native to Micronesia, a region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They are a part of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, which has an Urheimat in Taiwan.
Pius "Mau" Piailug was a Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian island of Satawal, best known as a teacher of traditional, non-instrument wayfinding methods for open-ocean voyaging. Mau's Carolinian navigation system, which relies on navigational clues using the Sun and stars, winds and clouds, seas and swells, and birds and fish, was acquired through rote learning passed down through teachings in the oral tradition. He earned the title of master navigator (palu) by the age of eighteen, around the time the first American missionaries arrived in Satawal. As he neared middle age, Mau grew concerned that the practice of navigation in Satawal would disappear as his people became acculturated to Western values. In the hope that the navigational tradition would be preserved for future generations, Mau shared his knowledge with the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS). With Mau's help, PVS used experimental archaeology to recreate and test lost Hawaiian navigational techniques on the Hōkūleʻa, a modern reconstruction of a double-hulled Hawaiian voyaging canoe.
Satawal is a solitary coral atoll of one island with about 500 people on just over 1 km2 located in the Caroline Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It forms a legislative district in Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia. Satawal is the easternmost island in the Yap island group and is located approximately 70 kilometers (43 mi) east of Lamotrek.
Pwo is a sacred initiation ritual, in which students of traditional navigation in the Caroline Islands in Micronesia become navigators (palu) and are initiated in the associated secrets. Many islanders in the area indicate that this ceremony originated on the island of Pollap, or nearby islands.
Alingano Maisu, also known as Maisu, is a double-hulled voyaging canoe built in Kawaihae, Hawaii, by members of Na Kalai Waʻa Moku o Hawaiʻi and ʻOhana Wa'a members from throughout the Pacific and abroad as a gift and tribute to Satawalese navigator Mau Piailug, who navigated the voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa on her maiden voyage to Tahiti in 1976 and has since trained numerous native Hawaiians in the ancient art of wayfinding. The word maisu comes from the Satawalese word for breadfruit that has been knocked down by storm winds and is therefore available for anyone to take. The name is said to symbolize the knowledge of navigation that is made freely available.
Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometres of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes. The double-hulled canoes were two large hulls, equal in length, and lashed side by side. The space between the paralleled canoes allowed for storage of food, hunting materials, and nets when embarking on long voyages. Polynesian navigators used wayfinding techniques such as the navigation by the stars, and observations of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns, and relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition. This island hopping was a solution to the scarcity of useful resources, such as food, wood, water, and available land, on the small islands in the Pacific Ocean. When an island’s required resources for human survival began to run low, the island's inhabitants used their maritime navigation skills and set sail for new islands. However, as an increasing number of islands in the South Pacific became occupied, and citizenship and national borders became of international importance, this was no longer possible. People thus became trapped on islands with the inability to support them.
The Habele Outer Island Education Fund is a South Carolina–based charitable organization serving K-12 aged students in Micronesia. Habele's initial geographic focus was the so-called "Outer Islands" of Yap State as well as lagoon and outer islands in neighboring Chuuk State in the Federated States of Micronesia. It now serves students of all backgrounds throughout the Freely Associated States.
The Carolinian people are a Micronesian ethnic group who originated in Oceania, in the Caroline Islands, with a total population of over 8,500 people in the Northern Mariana Islands. They are also known as Remathau in the Yap's outer islands. Refaluwasch means "People of the Deep Sea." It is thought that their ancestors may have originally immigrated from Asia and Melanesia to Micronesia around 2,000 years ago. Their primary language is Carolinian, called Refaluwasch by native speakers, which has a total of about 5,700 speakers. The Refaluwasch have a matriarchal society in which respect is a very important factor in their daily lives, especially toward the matriarchs. Most Refaluwasch are of the Roman Catholic faith.
Ifalik is a coral atoll of four islands in the central Caroline Islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district in Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia. Ifalik is located approximately 40 kilometers (25 mi) east of Woleai and 700 kilometers (430 mi) southeast of the island of Yap. The population of Ifalik was 561 in 2000, living on 1.5 km2. The primary islets of Ifalik are called Ella, Elangelap, Rawaii, and Flalap, which is the atoll's main island.
Lamotrek is a coral atoll of three islands in the central Caroline Islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district in Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia. The atoll is located approximately 11 kilometers (6.8 mi) east of Elato. The population of Lamotrek was 373 in 2000, living on almost 1 km2.
Satawalese is a Micronesian language of the Federated States of Micronesia. It is nearly mutually intelligible with Mortlockese and Carolinian.
Hipour was a master navigator from the navigational school of Weriyeng and the island of Puluwat.
Namonabetiu is a group of atolls within the Federated States of Micronesia; it comprises Puluwat, Pulap, Tamatam, and Pulusuk.
We, the Navigators, The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific is a 1972 book by the British-born New Zealand doctor David Lewis, which explains the principles of Micronesian and Polynesian navigation through his experience of placing his boat under control of several traditional navigators on long ocean voyages.
Sakman, better known in western sources as flying proas, are traditional sailing outrigger boats of the Chamorro people of the Northern Marianas. They are characterized by a single outrigger and a crab claw sail. They are the largest native sailing ships (ladjak) of the Chamorro people. Followed by the slightly smaller lelek and the medium-sized duding. They are similar to other traditional sailing ships of Micronesia, like the wa, baurua, and the walap. These ships were once used for trade and transportation between islands.
Micronesian navigation techniques are those navigation skills used for thousands of years by the navigators who voyaged between the thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean in the subregion of Oceania, that is commonly known as Micronesia. These voyagers used wayfinding techniques such as the navigation by the stars, and observations of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns, and relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition. These navigation techniques continued to be held by Polynesian navigators and navigators from the Santa Cruz Islands. The re-creations of Polynesian voyaging in the late 20th century used traditional stellar navigational methods that had remained in everyday use in the Caroline Islands.
Doran cites, for example, a 14-knot average for a Caroline Island canoe on a trip from Guam to Manila (p.62).
{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help){{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)| Commercial |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional |
| |
| Dories | ||
| Oyster boats | ||
| Recreational | ||
| Builders and designers | ||
