Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

The bark canoes which the Indians of North America employed on the great rivers and lakes when white men first went there are unchanged in their method of construction, and though in places where civilisation and the mechanical arts have assumed sway the old canoes have given way to the products of the modern boat-builders’ skill, yet in the farther North-West the Indian canoe ripples the summer surface of the lakes and streams as it did centuries ago. The real Indian canoes were made by building the frame, and then placing upon it a carefully prepared strip of birch bark sufficiently large to cover the entire frame in one piece; it was lashed to the frame and then stitched at the ends to form the bow and stern. The larger canoes were sometimes stiffened by having two or three pieces of wood lashed thwartwise. The canoes were propelled by means of paddles, and the Indians sat or knelt on the bottom of the boat. Many of these canoes weighed as little as 60 lb. and some even less. Their chief use was in the migrations of the tribes between their summer and winter quarters, and very picturesque they must have appeared to the early settlers as a flotilla glided past; that is, if an Indian could ever be regarded by an early settler as anything but “pizen.” But these canoes served equally well to convey the painted and feathered braves to battle; and anyone who has seen the Indians in their canoes can well imagine how in days now happily past, it is hoped for ever, a fleet of these boats, filled with cruel and relentless men, passed swiftly and silently over the waters at night, their paddles so skilfully wielded that the blades entered and left the water with never a splash to break the solemn stillness. Then the Indian canoe was no longer an emblem of joyous happiness, made only for the sparkling waters and clear nights and days of that foretaste of Paradise, the Indian summer, fit craft for the romantic passing of Hiawatha to “the kingdom of Ponemah”; but an evil thing, as swift and silent and terrible as the bloodthirsty men it bore to victory or destruction.

WAR CANOES OF INDIANS OF THE NORTH-WEST.

From a Photograph of a Painting, supplied by the Curator of the Chicago Museum.

The skin canoe or kayak of the Eskimo holds only one person, though its length may be anything from 7 or 8 feet to 25 feet. It is simply a light frame, running to a fine point at either end, never more than a few inches in depth, and with a breadth determined by the breadth of the man who is to use it. It is entirely skin-covered, except for a small hole in the deck, just abaft of amidships, in which the solitary occupant sits. The Eskimo are very clever in the management of their light craft—it weighs but a few pounds, and for its size is probably the lightest sea-going vessel in the world—and employ it chiefly in hunting, even at some distance from land.

The bark canoes of the Australian blacks were very primitive affairs; they have almost disappeared, sharing the fate of the rapidly dwindling aborigines. It may be doubted if a trace of one of these canoes could now be found from one end of the Murray River to the other. Since the blacks saw how easily the white man knocked together a few planks and made a flat-bottomed, straight-sided boat, they ceased to labour at bark canoes, but instead obtained a few boards, usually by pilfering, “borrowed” or begged a few nails, and with a stone for a hammer have done likewise, patching the very leaky seams with anything that came handy, were it scrap of tin, leather, raw hide, or well-greased fragment of a dirty, torn, old blanket, and making up for deficiencies by incessant bailing. Never again on the southern Australian rivers will the bark canoe convey the braves to the scene of the tribal conflict, or ferry in the dying glow of the setting sun the skeleton-painted men to the edge of the grim, dark forest on the other shore to attend a great corroboree, whether of war, rejoicing, or grief.

Nor have the African negroes made much progress beyond the dug-out stage of war canoe construction. The Moors and Arabs long since proved themselves excellent seamen and shipbuilders, designing boats suitable to their needs, and are in quite another category. The negroes of the Cross River district in Southern Nigeria may be taken as typical of the African canoe makers. They usually chose a mahogany or awosa tree, and, having felled it, burnt it hollow where it fell. It was then dragged on rollers to the waterside and finished with whatever tools were available, matchets, knives and axes being used since the white man’s introduction of those implements. Occasionally a canoe is “smoked” or hardened by being exposed to the hot smoke of a fire built round it. Some of the war canoes are as much as 60 feet in length, and are wide enough to allow the men to sit two abreast. The larger ones have a steering platform on a level with the gunwale or raised a foot or two above it, and a smaller platform is placed at the bow, where a flagstaff may also be fixed. When there are no thwarts or seats the crew sit on the bottom of the canoe or on the gunwale, according to the size of the vessel. Both bow and stern overhang. The paddles are made of hardwood in one piece, 3 to 4 feet in length, and are pointed.

It is to the East Indies and the Pacific that we must turn to find the most wonderful examples of the war canoe. They may be divided into two classes: those with outriggers—this section including double canoes—and those without.

A “DUG-OUT” CANOE OF NEW GUINEA.