Carving Traditional Seaworthy Canoes

I went to the canoe house on the lagoon yesterday where men are carving and assembling a traditional canoe. Some of the process is illustrated in my photos. A small boy, perhaps four or five years old, was watching the men as they worked, at times climbing into the lap of his grandfather, a master canoe builder who is supervising the project, before moving to a perch beside the carvers. At this young age, he's given a piece of wood and a small knife to begin learning how to carve. Eventually he will progress and, with nurturing and training, learn to carve seaworthy canoes, too.

A hand-made adz is used to shape the wood. Note the young boy in the back who is watching the men work and learning in preparation for the day when he will join them.

The canoe that's being carved in the canoe house is, like this one, a one-person canoe. There is only one pontoon for stability.

This man is shaping a type of wedge that will be used to insert wood pins in the canoe to which are lashed the separate end pieces with coconut fiber rope. Note his handmade adz.

This distinguished gentleman is make rope from coconut fiber. First he plucks the short threads and twists them together.

Next he takes the short lengths of handspun fibers and rolls the ends together against his thigh to form a long piece of rope. You can see the finished rope at the bottom of the photo.

And finally he tests the strength of the rope as he makes it, twisting it back on itself. Coconut fiber rope is strong and resilient, used instead of nails to lash together beams in the traditional houses as well as to lash together the canoes.

This is an example of how coconut fiber is intricately crisscrossed to form lashings that hold, in this case, building beams and pillars together and the canoes together without any nails.