Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/215

1769 large slabs of the wood, they certainly work more quickly, owing to the weight of their tools. Those who are masters of this business will take off a surprisingly thin coat from a whole plank without missing a stroke. They can also work upon wood of any shape as well as upon a flat piece, for in making a canoe every piece, bulging or flat, is properly shaped at once, as they never bend a plank; all the bulging pieces must be shaped by hand, and this is done entirely with axes. They have also small axes for carving; but all this latter kind of work was so bad, and in so very mean a taste, that it scarcely deserved that name. Yet they are very fond of having carvings and figures stuck about their canoes, the great ones especially, which generally have a figure of a man at the head and another at the stern. Their marais also are ornamented with different kinds of figures, one device representing many men standing on each other's heads. They have also figures of animals, and planks of which the faces are carved in patterns of squares and circles, etc. All their work, however, in spite of its bad taste, acquires a certain neatness in finish, for they polish everything, even the side of a canoe or the post of a house, with coral-sand rubbed on in the outer husk of a cocoanut and ray's skin, which makes it very smooth and neat.

Their boats, all at least that I have seen of them, may be divided into two general classes. The first, or ivahah, are the only sort used at Otahite; they serve for fishing and for short trips to sea, but do not seem at all calculated for long voyages; the others, or pahie, are used by the inhabitants of the Society Isles, viz. Ulhietea, Bola Bola, Huahine, etc., and are rather too clumsy for fishing, for which reason the inhabitants of those islands have also ivahahs. The pahie are much better adapted for long voyages. The figures below (p. 158) give a section of both kinds: Fig. 1 is the ivahah and Fig. 2 the pahie.

To begin, then, with the ivahah. These differ very much in length: I have measured them from 10 feet to 72 feet, but by no means proportional in breadth, for while that of 10 feet was about 1 foot in breadth, that of 72 feet was scarce 2 feet,