The pōpao is the Tongan outrigger canoe, one of the smaller vessels of Polynesian navigation. The canoe’s hull is carved out of a tree trunk and sticks (sometimes made out of bamboo) are usually used for the crossbeams that connect the outrigger or smaller hull.
What type of canoes did the Polynesians use?
The Polynesians’ primary voyaging craft was the double canoe made of two hulls connected by lashed crossbeams.
What were Hawaiian canoes made of?
It was essential that it be made of strong and healthy wood. Koa (scientific name: Acacia koa) was the preferred wood for the hull. The hull of a Hawaiian canoe was made from a single tree trunk.
Contents.
| Preface | v |
|---|---|
| Consecration and Launching | 33 |
| Tools | 39 |
| Parts of a Canoe | 47 |
| Types of Canoes | 57 |
What did Polynesians make sails out of?
mats
The sails were made of mats woven from pandanus leaves. These vessels were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, like the one between Hawai’i and Tahiti.
What are Polynesian canoes called?
The origins. Nowadays popularized by the Moana Disney movie, the Polynesian outrigger canoe is known in French Polynesia under its maohi name : “va’a”. Cunningly intended for long travels, it is made of a beam connected to the hull thanks to two wooden arms, which contribute to provide steadiness.
How did the Polynesians use canoes?
Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes.The space between the paralleled canoes allowed for storage of food, hunting materials, and nets when embarking on long voyages.
What Wood did Polynesians use?
Often these canoes were hollowed out from a single Totara log; being chosen long before it was felled. The Māori also used the wood for large carvings and framing for whare (housing).
How was the Hawaiian canoe was made?
Many South Pacific canoes are constructed by means of sewing planks together with natural fibers to form the Hull of the canoe. In Hawaii, the Koa Tree provided the Hawaiians with a large enough log so that this planking method was not necessary. The log was hollowed to form a one piece canoe hull.
How did Hawaiians build canoes?
Sometimes tools and materials that were needed to build a canoe would be limited. Hawaiians would use the fine wood of the koa tree and hollow it out to form a single hull canoe. This canoe would measure to be about 20-30 feet long.
What tools did Polynesians use?
Emory and Rowena Keaka. The stone adz was the most important tool of the Polynesians. With it they felled trees, shaped their canoes and canoe parts, and hewed timbers and household furnishings, wooden spears, and clubs.
How were the Polynesian canoes made?
Some canoes had hulls built from planks, while others had ‘dugout’ hulls made from hollowed-out tree trunks. The earliest Polynesian canoes were ‘tacking canoes’. Like modern yachts, they had a specific bow (front) and stern (back).
How did Polynesians get fresh water?
Apart from stores of water in gourds, coconuts and fish or seabirds, they were also able to catch and store rain water as replenishment.
Why do Hawaiian canoes have outriggers?
Outrigger boats were originally developed by the Austronesian-speaking peoples of the islands of Southeast Asia for sea travel. It is believed that the use of outriggers may have been initially caused by the need for stability on small watercraft after the invention of crab claw sails some time around 1500 BCE.
What is an AMA canoe?
The term ama is a word in the Polynesian and Micronesian languages to describe the outrigger part of a canoe to provide stability.In modern sailing, the term is sometimes used to refer to the outrigger on double-outrigger canoes (trimarans), or the two sections of a catamaran.
What race are the Polynesians?
Genetic studies
(2008) also confirmed that Polynesians are closer genetically to Micronesians, Taiwanese Aborigines, and Islander Southeast Asians than to Papuans. The study concluded that Polynesians moved through Melanesia fairly rapidly, allowing only limited admixture between Austronesians and Papuans.
What were outrigger canoes used for?
Outrigger canoes were originally developed by the Austronesian speaking peoples of the islands of Southeast Asia for sea travel. They were used to transport these peoples both eastward to Polynesia and New Zealand, and westward across the Indian Ocean as far as Madagascar.
How did the Polynesians get to Polynesia?
Scientists agree that early Polynesians were able to migrate across vast stretches of ocean in canoes, what has been a cause of curiosity, however, was how they managed to make their way to places that would have entailed sailing into the wind.
How big were Polynesian voyaging canoes?
These canoes ranged up to 20 m in length; they were used for deep-sea voyaging, and Haddon and Hornell suggest they could have been involved in early voyages to New Zealand (6).
What did Polynesians discover?
The Polynesians were very observant. They noted the directions that waves came from and how they affected or rocked their canoes. They had a keen sense of ocean currents and variations in bird and sea life in different places in the Pacific.
What were early canoes made from?
Primitive yet elegantly constructed, ranging from 3m to over 30m in length, Canoes throughout history have been made from logs, animal skins and tree bark and were used for basic transportation, trade, and in some instances, for war.
What are the main components of the Te Puke voyaging canoe?
The main hull is made from a single hollowed out log. The tepuke’s ‘engine’ is its huge crab claw-like sail made from pandanus leaf mats carefully stitched together. A small shelter on the deck keeps cargo and provisions dry during sea voyages. Parangaina was launched on the island of Taumako in 1997.
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