The skin of an animal, flayed off the body with but one incision, served, as I have elsewhere shown, a variety of purposes: from it the bellows was derived, the bagpipes, water-vessels, and pouches of various kinds; and, filled with air, it served the purpose of a float. Steinitz, in his History of the Ship, gives an illustration of an inflated ox skin, which in India is used to cross rivers; the owner riding upon the back of the animal and paddling with his hands, as if it had been a living ox.
In the Assyrian sculptures there are numerous illustrations representing men floating upon skins of this kind, which they clasp with the left hand, like the tree trunks, already mentioned, that are used by the American Indians, and swim with the right. Layard says this manner of crossing rivers is still practised in Mesopotamia. He also describes the raft, composed of a number of such floats, made of the skins of sheep flayed off with as few incisions as possible; a square framework of poplar beams is placed over a number of these, and tied together with osier and other twigs. The mouths of the sheep-skins are placed upwards, so that they can be opened and refilled by the raft-men. On these rafts the merchandise is floated down the river to Baghdad; the materials are then disposed of and the skins packed on mules, to return for another voyage. On the Nile similar rafts are used, the skins being supplanted by earthen pots, which, like the skins on the Euphrates, serve only a temporary purpose, and after the voyage down the river are disposed of in the bazaars.
This mode of floating upon skins I should conjecture to be of northern origin, and to be practised chiefly by nomadic races; but we find it employed on the Morbeya, in Morocco, by the Moors, who no doubt had it from the East. It is thus described by Lempriere, in 1789. A raft is formed of eight sheep-skins filled with air, and tied together with small cords; a few slender poles are laid over them, to which they are fastened, and that is the only means used at Buluane to convey travellers, with their baggage, over the river. As soon as the raft is loaded, a man strips, jumps into the water, and swims with one hand, whilst he pulls the raft after him with the other; another swims and pushes behind. This reminds us of the custom of the Gran Chaco Indians of South America, who, in crossing rivers, use a square boat or tub of bull’s hide, called pelota. It is attached by a rope to the tail of a horse, which swims in front; or the rope is taken in the mouth of an expert swimmer.
I have not traced the distribution of these rafts of inflated skins as continuously as, I have no doubt, they might be traced amongst nomadic and pastoral races, moving with their flocks and herds, the skins of which would be employed in this way; nor have I been able to trace the connexion which, I have no doubt, existed between the inflated skin and the open ‘curragh’ of wicker covered with skins. Where one is found, the other is often found with it. Herodotus describes the boats used by the people who came down the river to Babylon, and says they are constructed in Armenia, and in the parts above Assyria, thereby connecting them with the north. ‘The ribs of these vessels,’ he says, ‘are formed of willow boughs and branches, and covered externally with skin. They are round, like a shield, there being no distinction between head and stern. They line the bottom with reeds and straw, and taking on board merchandise, chiefly palm wine, float down the stream. The boats have two oars, one to each man: one pulls and the other pushes. They are of different dimensions, some having a single ass on board and others several. On their arrival at Babylon the boatmen dispose of their goods, and offer for sale the ribs and straw; they then load the asses with the skins, and return with them to Armenia, where they construct new boats’—just as is now done with the inflated skins of the rafts at Baghdad.
In the Pictorial Bible an illustration is given from the Sassanian sculptures at Takht-i-Bostan of several of these round vessels, probably of wicker, covered with skins. In one of these the principal figure carries a composite bow, which, as I have elsewhere shown, is of northern origin. Mr. Layard discovered in Nimroud a sculpture in which one of these boats is represented. It is round, like those described by Herodotus; back and stern alike; carrying two people, one of whom pulls and the other pushes; and in the same sculpture are represented men swimming on the inflated sheep-skins. He says that these same round vessels are still used at Baghdad, built of boughs and timber covered with skins, over which bitumen is smeared to render it more water-tight. [Hamilton] also speaks of the same vessels (of reeds and bitumen) on the Euphrates, at the commencement of the eighteenth century.
On the Cavery, in Mysore, Buchanan, in 1800, describes ferry-boats that are called donies, which are circular baskets covered with leather; but whether these vessels, like the composite bow used in the same region, can be traced to a northern origin I have not the means of determining, nor have I as yet sufficient materials to enable me to ascertain whether such vessels are employed in the north of Asia at the present time. What the inflated skin is to these circular vessels, the kayak is to the baidar of the Esquimaux. Throughout the whole region occupied by this race, these two kinds of vessels are used, differing only in minute varieties of detail in the different localities. According to Dr. King, whose valuable paper, ‘On the Industrial Arts of the Esquimaux,’ was published in the first volume of the Journal of the Ethnological Society (1848), the varieties of the kayak in the different localities consist merely in the elevation and shape of the rim of the hole in which the man sits. In Prince William Sound, on the NW. coast, the kayak is frequently built with two or three holes to contain two or three men. The bow has two beaks, one of which turns up, according to Captain Cook, like the head of a violin, as represented in No. 1254 of my collection. This is also used in the Aleutian Isles. The meaning of this double beak I have not been able to ascertain. The baidar used on this coast has also a double beak, as represented in No. 1255 of my collection.
In the British Museum there is a kayak with a single opening, from Behring Straits, which differs but little from another in the same museum from Greenland; the kayak of Greenland has a knob of ivory at each end to protect the sharp point. The baidar is used at Ochotsk and Kamtschatka, on the Asiatic coast, and all along the northern coast of America, eastward from Behring Strait. Models of both baidar and kayak are in the British Museum, from Kotzebue Sound. In Frobisher Strait, Frobisher, in 1577, says the boats are of two kinds of leather stretched on frames, the greater sort open, and carrying sixteen or twenty people (the baidar), and the lesser, to carry one man, covered over, except in one place where the man sits (the kayak). In Hudson’s Straits and Greenland, where the larger vessels are called oomiak, they are flat-sided and flat-bottomed, about three feet high, and nearly square at the bow and stern, whereas this sort on the north-west coast is sometimes pointed at bow and stern. Kerguelen, in 1767, mentions both kinds in Greenland; and Kalm, in 1747, speaks of both, though not from personal observation, on the coast of Labrador. The Esquimaux canoe has been known to have drifted from Greenland across the north of Scotland, and has been picked up, with the man still alive in it, on the coast of Aberdeen (Wilson).
In Britain the coracle of osier, covered with skin, is mentioned by Caesar, and in Britain, Gaul, and Italy by Lucan (A.D. 39-65). In Scotland, Bellenden, in the sixteenth century, speaks of the currock of wands, covered with bulls’ hide, as being in use in the sixteenth century, and its representative is still used in the west of Ireland. Sir William Wilde says that, under the name of curragh, it is still made of leather, stretched over a wooden frame, on the Boyne, and in Arran, on the west coast, of light timber, covered with painted canvas, which has superseded the use of leather. I have seen these vessels at Dingle, on the south-west coast, where they go by the name of nevōg; they are there 23 feet in length by 4 in width, and 1 ft. 9 inches deep, made of laths, and covered with painted canvas; they are used, from Valentia, along the west coast as far as Galway. In the south they are larger than in the north, where they are called curraghs, and a single man can carry one on his back, as the ancient Briton did his coracle. Their continuance is caused by their cheapness, costing only £6 when new. Here also they were, until recently, constructed of leather. They have a small triangular sail, and, like the most ancient forms of vessels, they are guided, when sailing, by means of oars, one on each side.
5. Rafts.
The trunks of trees, united by mutual attraction, as they floated down the stream, would suggest the idea of a raft. The women of Australia use rafts made of layers of reeds, from which they dive to obtain mussel-shells. In New Guinea the catamaran, or small raft formed of three planks lashed together with rattan, is the commonest vessel used. Others are larger, containing ten or twelve persons, and consist of three logs lashed together in five places, the centre log being the longest, and projecting at both ends.