Paopao (canoe)

Men carve a canoe on Nanumea Atoll in Tuvalu.

A paopao (from the Samoan language, meaning a small fishing canoe made from a single log), is the name used by the Polynesian-speaking inhabitants of the Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu) for their single-outrigger canoes, of which the largest could carry four to six adults. The large double-hulled sailing canoes (lualua and foulua) had ceased to be constructed in the Ellice Islands some time before contact with Europeans.[1]

Donald Gilbert Kennedy, the resident District Officer in the administration of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony from 1932 to 1938, described the construction of paopao and of the variations of single-outrigger canoes that had been developed on Vaitupu and Nanumea.[2] Gerd Koch, an anthropologist, visited the atolls of Nanumaga, Nukufetau and Niutao, in 1960–61, and published a book on the material culture of the Ellice Islands, which also described the canoes of those islands.[3]

The variations of single-outrigger canoes that had been developed on Vaitupu and Nanumea were reef-type or paddled canoes; that is, they were designed for carrying over the reef and being paddled, rather than being sailed. Outrigger canoes from Nui were constructed with an indirect type of outrigger attachment and the hull is double-ended, with no distinct bow and stern. These canoes were designed to be sailed over the Nui lagoon.[4] The booms of the outrigger are longer than those found in other designs of canoes from the Ellice Islands. This made the Nui canoe more stable when used with a sail than the other designs.[4]

  1. ^ Simati Faaniu (1983). "Chapter 16 – Travellers and Workers". In Laracy, Hugh (ed.). Tuvalu: A History. Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific and Government of Tuvalu. p. 121.
  2. ^ Kennedy, Donald (1931). The Ellice Islands Canoe Journal of the Polynesian Society Memoir no. 9. Journal of the Polynesian Society. pp. 71–100.
  3. ^ Gerd Koch (translated by Guy Slater) (1981). The Material Culture of Tuvalu. Suva: University of the South Pacific. ASIN B0000EE805.
  4. ^ a b McQuarrie, Peter (1976). "Nui Island sailing canoes". Journal of the Polynesian Society. 85 (4): 543–548.