It has been noticed that one of their skin-boats, or kayaks, was "kept as a Rarity" in the Museum at Edinburgh, and that another was preserved "in the Church of Burra in Orkney."[23] There are many British traditions of such boats in connection with such people; although the names by which those skiffs are popularly remembered are as unreasonable as the "scaly train" of the Finn-woman of Corryvreckan. In Sutherland it is said that those people used to cross the Dornoch Firth in "cockle-shells;"[24] while one man records having seen them quitting the coasts of the Isle of Man "in empty rum puncheons," in which vessels he "saw them scudding away as far as the eye could reach."[25] It is very likely that those traditional "witches" who went to sea in "sieves" were also identical with those who came from the coast of Norway "disguised as seals;" and that the sieve was nothing else than the kayak.
That the Finns of Orkney and Shetland used the long, narrow kayaks of the modern Esquimaux and Samoyeds is unmistakable: and the same shape of skiff has probably been employed by British and other European "mer-men" for an immemorial period. But other varieties of this kind of boat have been used. For example, the natives of those islands and promontories which form "the Rosses" of Donegal are described (in the years 1753 and 1754) as using seal-skin boats; but their shape does not seem to have been identical with that of the kayak. "Their boats" (says a visitor to the "Rosses" at that date[26]), "called curraghs, were oval baskets, covered with seal-skins; and in such weak and tottering vessels they ventured so far out as was necessary to get fish enough for their families."
These curraghs, it would seem, were nearer those still used in Wales (and also by the Mandans of the Upper Missouri) than the long, covered-in skiff of the Arctic tribes. Or, perhaps, they resemble those curraghs now used in Ireland, which differ chiefly from ordinary "boats" in their frames being covered with skins in place of planks. In his Gaelic dictionary, Armstrong states that "the curach, or boat of leather and wicker," was "much in use in the Western Isles (Hebrides), even long after the art of building boats of wood was introduced." As he says that Islemen "fearlessly committed themselves, in these slight pinnaces, to the mercy of the most violent weather," it seems most likely that the "decked" kayak is the kind of which he is speaking, and when he gives a diminutive form of curach (curachan), and defines it "a little skiff; a canoe," it is almost certain that he has in view the "kayak" of the Finn-man.
Whichever of these two terms may be assumed to indicate the kayak, it is scarcely conceivable that the Hebrideans would "fearlessly commit themselves to the mercy of the most violent weather," in an open skin-boat. But this is what the kayakers do. "They do not fear venturing out to sea in these boats in the greatest storms," says Hans Egede, referring to the Eskimos of the eighteenth century, "because they can swim as light upon the largest waves as a bird can fly; and when the waves come upon them with all their fury, they only turn the side of the boat towards them to let them pass, without the least danger of being sunk."[27] Referring to the same usage of the Orkney Finnman, Brand says that he does this, "when in a storm he seeth the high surge of a wave approaching." And Wallace's annotator has the same remark: "They [the Finnmen] have this advantage, that be the Seas never so boisterous, their boats being made of Fish Skins, are so contrived that he can never sink, but is like a Sea-gull swimming on the top of the watter."
It appears impossible to ascertain a time when skin-boats were not used in Europe. In speaking of the Oestrymnic Isles and their inhabitants, Dr. Skene quotes the following account of their vessels, as given by Rufus Festus Avienus, a writer of the fourth century:—
"They know not to fit with pine
Their keels, nor with fir, as use is,
They shape their boats; but, strange to say,
They fit their vessels with united skins,
And often traverse the deep in a hide."
As Dr. Skene points out, these Oestrymnic Isles were identical with the Cassiterides, (i.e., "Tin Islands,") and, under either name, were famous for their tin mines. But, in identifying them with the Scilly Isles, Dr. Skene is manifestly in error; as all evidence on this point tends to show that the Oestrymnides, or Cassiterides, formed a group of islands lying off the Spanish coast, which, at some period during the Christian era, became submerged. The fourth-century writer quoted "says that the northern promontory of Spain was called Oestrymnis, and adds, 'Below the summit of this promontory the Oestrymnic bay spreads out before the inhabitants, in which the Oestrymnic Isles show themselves.'" The testimony of Diodorus is to the same effect: "Above the country of the Lusitanians, there are many mines of tin in the little islands called Cassiterides from this circumstance, lying off Iberia, in the ocean." So also Strabo, who states that "the Cassiterides are ten in number, and lie near each other in the ocean, towards the north from the haven of the Artabri."[28] All this is consistently borne out by the map of Spain ("from the Latin Ptolemy, 1478") which Mr. Elton, who calls Dr. Skene's deduction in question, appends to his "Origins of English History."[29] In that map, it will be seen that, according to Ptolemy, the Cassiterides—ten in number—lay off the Spanish coast, north-west of Cape Finisterre, and that that portion of the mainland was inhabited by the Artabri. Among all these writers and geographers, therefore, there is entire agreement; and none of their statements have any reference to the neighbourhood of the English coast.[30] That these islanders did not know the art of building vessels of wood, and were accustomed to cross the sea in skin-boats, is regarded by Dr. Skene as corroborative of his belief that they were British and not Iberian islanders. "But the Iberian coracles were as well known as those of the Britons," says Mr. Elton;[31] and of this we ought perhaps to see a survival in the "curo, a small boat used on the Garonne," which Armstrong compares with the Gaelic curach.
Of the presence of the skin-boat in British waters there is ample evidence, and it would be superfluous to enlarge upon this. There is, moreover, evidence that certain "trans-marine nations" came to Britain in such craft, in early times. And, half-way between the opening centuries of the Christian era and the period of the Orkney Finnmen, there is a reference which suggests the skin-boat among the Finns of Norway, although it does nothing more than suggest. In the Heimskringla (Saga xiv) it is stated that Sigurd Slembe and his followers passed the winter of 1139 in a cave at Tialdasund, the sound which separates the Lofoten Isles from the Norwegian mainland, and that on that occasion the Finns (or Lapps, as they are indifferently called) constructed two large boats for them. These boats were of fir, but the peculiarity about them was that not a nail was used in their construction. Like the framework of the modern kayak, the various parts of these boats were fastened together by sinews,[32] a method which, as the saga shows, was certainly not that of Sigurd and his people, who remark upon the absence of nails. Thus, although this incident shows that those Finns of the twelfth century were able to build boats of wood, yet their method of joining the timbers suggests the affinity which they otherwise bear to the Eskimos. But, while their own boats may have differed from those they built for their visitors, there is nothing in the passage to support this assumption.[33]
That the round curach or coracle, covered with skin, and similar to that still seen in Wales, was in use in the north of Scotland in the early part of the last century, is testified to by a letter quoted in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1880-81, p. 179-80, from which it will be seen that the tradition already referred to—that the dwellers on the shores of the Dornoch Firth used to employ "cockle-shells" as ferry-boats—is nothing but a fanciful and imperfect resemblance of this particular kind of curach. The curachs, however, in which the Western Islanders "fearlessly committed themselves ... to the mercy of the most violent weather" cannot have been of this shape. But either variety of skin-boat was undoubtedly the property of the one race of people. Among the Eskimos, also, there is considerable variety. We are told, for example, in a description of the Aleutian Islanders during last century, that "their vessels consist of two sorts," of which one is the kayak, propelled by the double-bladed paddle, while the other is large enough to hold thirty or forty people, and has "oars on both sides." But both kinds are skin-covered. The Eskimo tribes have also the smaller open skin-boat, capable of holding eight or ten people. And this, like the similar skin-boat of the British Isles, has sometimes sails. These facts are therefore quite consistent with the belief that the European tribes using this variety of Eskimo boat used also the slender, decked canoe or "kayak."
Enough, then, has been said to indicate the presence of those skiff-people in various parts of the British Islands, and in various parts of Europe. It may be that the latest authentic records of British Esquimaux are those given by Brand and Wallace, in the end of the seventeenth century.[34] True, the Shetlandic (and perhaps other) traditions bring us down to later dates. But traditions are necessarily uncertain. However, we do know that the waters surrounding the Orcadian and Shetland groups were fished in by Esquimaux tribes so recently as the year 1700[35]; and we also know from tradition, that these same "Finns" or "Finn-men" "were wont to pursue boats at sea," and to demand a money-tribute from the fishermen whom they chased. (In turn, they themselves were pursued by the islanders, when they made their appearance singly, near their coasts.) That they were feared by the islanders is evident from the Shetlandic legends; and it will be noticed that those Shetlanders who are understood to have Finn blood in their veins "look upon themselves as superior to common people." All this suggests that those straggling "Finn-men" of the year 1700 were really the representatives of a decayed caste of conquerors. The fact that they are remembered as wearing armour places them before us as a distinctly military race; and "the Darts they make use of for killing Fish" were probably the least important of their weapons.