Vatican boat model exhibit, Part 3

This is the final post about a current exhibit of boat models and canoe paddles at the Vatican Museums. Previous posts about this exhibit cover the other models representing boats from outside the Western tradition, and one full-size canoe from the Solomon Islands. As noted in the previous posts, exhibit signage was sparse. We reproduce the English text of the exhibit cards in quotation marks. Our own comments appear in parentheses. As always, click any image to enlarge.

"Tahiti: Catamaran" (The two hulls are essentially the same but with their ends reversed. The boat should perform the same in either direction when it shunts.)

"Aotearoa New Zealand: Maori boat" (A monohull war canoe. See our earlier post on boats like this.)

"Papua New Guinea: Three hull catamaran" (beautiful double crab-claw rig)

(Same model as above, showing the hull configuration.)

"Papua New Guinea: Boat with outrigger" (The main hull is a dugout with high washstrakes stitched in place)

"Solomon (Islands): Canoe with bird shaped bow" (Somewhat similar to the full-size canoe that serves as the exhibit's centerpiece.)

"Fiji: Sailing boat" (Twin-hull canoe with oceanic lateen sail)

(Same model as previous. The port hull is much smaller and shorter than the starboard, but it is nonetheless a true hull, not an outrigger float.)

"Chile; Alakaluf Canoe" (This looks much like the Yamana/Yaghan canoe we've written about previously.)

"Alaska: Canoe" (Adney called this a "kayak-form canoe.")

"Chile: Yaghan (Yamana) canoe" (Images created by Europeans show greatly different forms of Yaghan or Yamana canoes. See the Alakaluf canoe two images above.)

"Canada: Canoe" (...and a rather fanciful one at that! We're not aware of any bark canoes built with full decks and a round cockpit coaming. The modeler seems to be combining aspects of the open bark canoe with the skin-on-frame kayaks of Alaska.)

"Brazil: Caraja river boat" (The cargo of what appears to represent a dugout canoe is probably tortoises or sea turtles. At the right is a pregnant woman; at the left, a baby.)

background: "Canada: Canoe"
foreground: "Alaska: Bark canoe"

"Bolivia: Mosetenes raft" (A double-hull raft. Perhaps it is built to be separated, so that it can be used as two smaller craft.)

"Peru - Bolivia: Ayamara boat"(A reed boat of the type used on Lake Titicaca.)

background: "Rocky Mountains: Canoe"
foreground: "USA: Canoe"
(Both are birchbark types.)

background: "Madagascar: Dugout canoe"
middle-right: "Madagascar: Dugout canoe"
left: "...West Coast" (presumably Africa; we failed to capture the full label text)
front-right: "Madagascar: Dugout canoe"

"Mozambique: Raft" (We'd call this a coracle, not a raft, since it relies on the enclosure of space for buoyancy. The model is made from a single piece of bent bark. If the full-size boat is built the same way, it must be quite small, or else it requires an enormously wide tree.)

"Africa - East Coast: Sailing boat with outrigger" (The main hull is extraordinarily narrow and highly rockered. This must be a thrilling boat to sail.)

background: "Congo: Canoe with rower" (a paddler, in fact)
foreground: "Congo: Canoe"

background: "Nigeria: Boat with two rowers" (paddlers)
middle: "Nigeria: Boat with passengers"
front: "Nigeria: Boat with passengers"
(All three represent dugouts with an aft platform carved as an integral part of the hull for the stern paddler/helmsman. Locating the paddle force so far aft of the submerged part of the hull lends a great deal of power for turning and correcting strokes, making these boats highly maneuverable.) 

"Nigeria: Yoruba boats: H.E. Mons, Carlo Maria Viganò" (These were the only models in the exhibit credited to whom we assume was the donor or lender.)

A nice selection of canoe paddles were exhibited at the end of each of the spiral levels of the hall, unfortunately with no exhibit cards or other identification. (This photo by Cate Monroe)

A closer look at the paddles on the middle level.

(All images by the blogger except as noted.)

A Bevy of Brazilian Boats

Brazilian Boats & Canoes is a great blog, featuring articles on (currently) more than 30 different boat types in use throughout Brazil. Among those that were clearly developed largely independent of European influence are:
Canoa Baiana (dugout)
Canoa Bordada (dugout)
Canoa Caiçara (dugout)
Canoa de Casca (bark canoe)
Casco (dugout)
Jangada (sailing log raft)

Most of the others feature Euro-derived construction methods or designs, but even so, most of them are uniquely indigenous to Brazil. Well worth a visit. Kudos to author Jan W. Aten, and thanks to Silvio Antunha for the tip.

(Update 19/08/23: Brazilian Boats & Canoes has changed its URL. I have updated the primary link in the first paragraph but have not updated links to individual pages and I'm not sure they still exist.)

Canoe Racing in Brazilian Indigenous Games

Some 600 Brazilian Indians from 29 ethnic groups competed in sporting events in the tenth edition of the Indigenous Nations' Games in Pagagominas, north Brazil. Along with conventional and blow-gun archery, a log-carrying race, tugs of war and many other events was a canoeing race. REUTERS/Paulo Santos

Jangada Fisherman's Song

Here's a video (a slide show, really) with lots of good images of the Brazilian fishing craft known as a jangada. The soundtrack is a jangada fisherman's song. Most of the jangadas shown are of the more modern plank-built buoyancy-hull type, but there appear to be a couple of the log-raft variety. I find the mast, with its adjustable foot and severe curve, to be among the more interesting features of this type.


We've looked at jangadas in several previous posts. For more, see here.

Thanks to Brazilian friend/reader Silvio Antunha for this one.

Brazilian Canoe Art by Benedito Calixto

Sad times in Brazil, with firm evidence of the Airbus crash just emerging. But Brazilian correspondent Silvio Antunha sends information about an artist who documented the wonderful dugout canoes of his country. Benedito Calixto (1853-1927) was Silvio's grand-uncle on his mother's side. Silvio sent several pertinent links, all in Portuguese, but well worth checking out even if, like me, you are afflicted by "American's Disease" and can't do anything but English.
http://br.geocities.com/benedicto_calixto/pagina_marinhas.htm
http://www.novomilenio.inf.br/santos/calixt45.htm
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedito_Calixto

The first of the links above, from which I borrowed the painting at the top of this post, has some formatting problems, but if you move your cursor carefully along the right-hand column of thumbnails, you'll eventually find the links to larger images. (No problems with the left-hand column.) The image of the artist himself, below, is from the Wikipedia site.


Silvio points out that the artist's name translates as Sacred Goblet (i.e., Holy Grail?).

I've written about Brazilian dugouts previously, mostly with Silvio's valuable input. This link will bring them all up. If you want still more, there's some great stuff on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8yHb43wjzE&NR=1 Dugout regatta sailing action: these things seem to behave beautifully in a chop, and seem surprisingly forgiving of "bad" technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow11ZqvMWEM Mainly a slide show with some nice images of dugout construction. The image that appears around 1:25 shows some of the nicest lines I've ever seen on a dugout.

Brazilian Dugout "Ubá"

Here's a real beauty of a Brazilian monoxylon (hah! an expert's Latin-based jargon for a dugout, translating as "one tree") pointed out to me by correspondent Silvio Antunha. The original content from which I've borrowed the photo, with text in Portuguese, is here, and below is Silvio's commentary and partial translation (which I've edited):

The name of the beautiful canoe posted by Celso Lück is "Ubá", and it is used for fishing. Ubá (pronounced You-Bah) is a tupi-guarani word that means "a canoe made in one piece carved from a single trunk of a tree". It is from the coast of the state of Paraná, south of the state of São Paulo. Between the two states there is a marvelous, huge preserved area of Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest) that forms the incredible Lagamar (The Swampy Land), on the estuary of the Rio Ribeira de Iguape. The source of this river is near the astonishing Caverna do Diabo (Devil's Cave), in the heights of the Serra do Mar.

The design of this canoe is original from Paraná. The canoemaker needs the skills and the know-how of a true sculptor. Faithful to the ancient indigenous traditions, the fishermen make their canoes by carving trunks of large trees, mainly of thick guapiruvus (Schizolodium parahybum), using only axes and hoes [blogger: adzes?], both curved and straight. The oars [paddles?], the fishing poles and fixtures are made of jacatirão (Tibouchina pulchra), yellow massaranduba (Mimusops brasiliensis) and caixeta (Tabebuia cassinoides), members of the rich regional Atlantic coast flora.(The information above is a mix from myself, from Celso Lück's post, and from entries of Wikipedia in Portuguese, for example http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caverna_do_diabo).

There is also a poem (which is sung) devoted to the canoe:

Ubá!
It is a canoe
Made of a single trunk
Guapivuru is the good tree
That gives the canoe
Of a single trunk

Now see master Tião [i.e., Sebastian]
A small chopper in his hand
Making the canoe
Carved from a single trunk

The last guardian
Keeps the tradition
The last maker
Of the canoe of a single trunk
...with his Caiçara hands
with his natural gift...
...The trunk carved
Now it is a canoe of wood...

This is probably the most elaborate dugout I've seen from a Western (i.e., not Pacific) culture. Note the rudder with steering lines, the elaborate fitting out with gunwales, thwarts, false stem, etc., and of course the striking paint scheme.

Many thanks again , Silvio, for wonderful input!

Brazilian Dugouts Again

It will come as no surprise that the traditional Brazilian dugout is fading in popularity – like most indigenous boats (indeed, like much indigenous culture) around the world. According to materials provided by my source, Silvio Antunha, forest protection laws enacted in the 1970s have made it difficult to obtain trees suitable for the construction of traditional dugouts in Brazil, and the knowledge and skills are on the wane as older builders leave the scene without an opportunity to pass that knowledge on to a new generation.

The boats are sometimes called vogue canoes (or bogue in Caiçara pronunciation), vogue being the term for paddling, the stroke or rhythm of paddling, or the paddler who calls the stroke. Smaller caiçara canoes, like those shown in my previous post, are usually built from softwoods like guaperuvu (Schizolodium parahybum), while larger ones – up to 40 feet long! – make use of more rot-resistant woods like jequitibá , and oars (paddles?) and other components are made of jacatirão (Tibouchina pulchra), massaranduba (Mimusops brasiliensis) and caixeta (Tabebuia cassinoides).

It appears that larger boats have added strakes and built-up bows and sterns for higher freeboard, and these may be referred to as “sewn” boats. (The rather rough, machine-translated document I’m relying on uses the term “embroidered.” It also uses the term “rowing” which, I believe, implies for paddling. For the original, see here.) I’ll quote at length:

The rowing canoes of this size are propelled by a team of several paddlers, using even sailing gears, when it has a mast fixed on the front of the vessel. As the vogue canoe has no keel, the sails (which could reach the number three) are used only with winds from the stern of the vessel.

People could spend a week to go and return to Santos, depending on the conditions of the ocean and the winds. Most of the farming production and the cachaça (sugar cane
rum) of the northern coast was shipped by this type of vessel.

From the 1920s, the vogue canoes began to be moved by motors.

It's interesting that these boats, which are reportedly very unstable, were used for coastal freight carrying, and under sail. The strikingly colorful paint schemes, as shown above and in the previous post, seem to be characteristic of the craft. For more nice photos like the one above, and text in Portuguese, see this page from the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo.

Correction to previous post: The phrase “to pull,” meaning to build a canoe (by “pulling it” out of the tree trunk) comes from a Caiçara term, not Portuguese.
Addition to previous post: photos were taken by Fernando Costa

Caiçara Dugouts of Brazil

I received much great information on Brazilian dugouts from reader Silvio Antunha. I hope to cover this over several posts, but we’ll start with these great photos of the construction process.

The boat shown is a "canoinha" , or little canoe, built in the style of Caiçara, in the southernmost state on the Brazilian coast. Interestingly, the process of dugout building is known by the Portuguese term for “pulling,” – not in the sense of a Western “pulling boat,” but according to the idea that the boat is “pulled” out of the tree.

Using charcoal-impregnated string, Caiçara builders line out their canoe on the tree trunk using a pattern of 21 straight lines – amazing, since there aren’t any straight lines on the finished boat. According to Silvio, the boats are “slow, unstable and unsafe,” but also “amazingly graceful and peaceful. Dolphins loved to follow the rower, just as pets, 1,5 or 2m near the boats.”

Roughing out with an axe:

Roughing out the exterior. Note the black lines that define the hull shape:

The straight lines marked with charcoal are always present: The interior after being roughed out with an adze:

Turning the hull over, shown in steps:

Because of a flaw in the wood at the bow, the builder cut out a square opening and filled it with a sound block of wood:

The finished boat, named Silvana, is shown at the top of the post, with the builder, Sr Israel .

More to come on these beautiful boats in a future post. Many thanks to Silvio for this great input.

Comments Posted

I'd like to steer your attention to interesting comments recently posted by readers:

• Regarding the enormous size of dugout canoes observed by early European explorers to Brazil, take a look at Paul Lima's comment at the bottom of this post. Also see his website, The Endangered Coast.
• A link to material on contemporary Brazilian dugouts was provided by reader Silvio Titanic Neruda , which can be found attached to my very first blog post, here. I was unable to open the link in the comment, but Silvio has provided me with some of the materials (and kindly translated some of the content from Portuguese), and I'll be posting this great input soon.

Many thanks to both contributors!

Readers, please feel free to get in touch with all kinds of content related to boats from outside the Western plank-on-frame tradition -- I'm only too glad to put it in front of other readers. That includes just about anything on traditional boat types from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, plus canoes, kayaks, and rafts from anywhere.