ʻike kālai waʻa: canoe innovation in the...

These lessons have been developed in partnership with the University of Hawaiʻi College of Education and Polynesian Voyaging Society. Funding has

been provided by the Department of Education Native Hawaiian Education Program.

© Bishop Museum, 2014. All rights reserved. 1

ʻIke Kālai Waʻa:

Canoe Innovation in the Pacific

Credit: Mark Ellis, Mahina Hou Ross

Grade Level: 6-8

Learning Time: 4 Weeks

Keywords: buoyancy, outrigger, pwo, raft,

waʻa

(Photo source: http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/images/graphics/kane_waa_small10.jpeg)

Summary & Goals:

Students will explore why people sailed across the vast Pacific Ocean, how canoes were built, and how the design of single and double hull canoes evolved.

Background | Standards | Resources and Materials | Instructions | References

Background:

SCIENTIFIC

The effect of even wind blowing against a person’s body is enough to move a vessel through the water in the same direction. Rafts are well suited to drifting and steering with the current but generally can only sail in the same direction as the wind. Single-hulled canoes offer considerable advantages over rafts, including more buoyancy and greater ease of paddling, but dug-out tree trunks tend to have round cross-sections and very low resistance to capsizing. Outriggers, attached to hulls by cross beams, provide roll stability: when lifted from the water,

their weight provides a righting movement to rotate them back to the surface and, when pushed into the water (by rotation of the canoe’s hull), their buoyancy restores them to the surface. Double-hulled canoes are not only more stable than single-hulled outrigger canoes but also have greater carrying capacity (in terms of supplies and people), making them more ideally suited for long-distance or deep-sea voyaging.




The depth of the canoe in the water provides some resistance to leeway (moving sideways rather than forwards), which enables them to sail at an angle to the wind rather than directly downwind, and paddles (which were initially used for propulsion) were later adapted for steering while sailing. However, further development of the shape of the sail and the rig that supports it was required before canoes could sail nearly towards the direction from which the wind comes (i.e., “reaching”).

CULTURAL

Seafaring is a defining feature of Polynesian and other Austronesian cultures. The history of Pacific seafaring is highlighted by two technological breakthroughs: 1) the outrigger canoe and 2) the double-hulled sailing canoe (precursor to the modern catamaran). Because of the poor preservation of wood in most archaeological sites, the majority of evidence for these inventions comes from historical linguistics and ethnographic studies. Thanks to the combined efforts of archaeologists and historic linguists, who have made considerable progress in

studying where and when the outrigger and double-hulled canoes first appeared, we now know that double-hulled canoes were likely developed around 2,0003,000 years ago in the region of Sāmoa, Tonga, and Fiji (i.e., near the border of Melanesia and Polynesia), while the outrigger canoe was invented much earlier and most likely in the Philippines.

(Photo source: Vaka Moana)

( Photo source: Vaka Moana )




VOYAGING According to New Zealand bureaucrat-turned-amateur-historian Andrew Sharp (in Ancient

Voyagers in Polynesia published in 1964), a long series of accidental drift and exile voyages (i.e., not planned voyages of exploration and settlement) had randomly scattered the first settlers of Pacific islands. Although a number of knowledgeable scholars disagreed, the two main sources on Polynesian voyaging then available (i.e., migration legends and explorers’ reports) did not provide enough information to settle the issue. Therefore, according to anthropologist Dr. Ben Finney, “The only way to get the needed information was to reconstruct the old canoes

and ways of navigating and then test these over the legendary sea routes of Polynesia” (Finney, 2003, p. 8), thus venturing into experimental archaeology or the replication of an artifact “in search of the mind of an ancient people” (Kyselka, 1987, p. 15). In 1973, Hawaiian artist Herb Kawainui Kāne, local paddler Tommy Holmes, and he (Ben Finney) founded the Polynesian Voyaging Society to “raise money, build the canoe, and make the voyage” (Finney, 2003, p. 9). Two years later (in 1975), Hōkūleʻa was launched and, in 1976, sailed to and from Tahiti (from Hawaiʻi), proving that sheer distance had not been a barrier to Polynesian voyagers.

Norwegian explorer (and author of Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft published in 1950) Thor Heyerdahl had also claimed that canoe voyagers from Southeast Asia could not have tacked (i.e., sailed into the wind) eastward within the Pacific against “permanent trade winds” and instead must have drifted from South America. In 1986 Nainoa Thompson and the crew of Hōkūleʻa sought to disprove this theory by sailing from Sāmoa 1,250 miles to the east-southeast to Tahiti (i.e., directly upwind with respect to the normal trade wind flow in that part of the

Pacific) and were aided in doing so by seasonal spells of westerly winds (that had formed from storms developing south of the tropics).

BISHOP MUSEUM

The museum’s Cultural Collections house a number of canoe models, including a model

Satawalese proa personally crafted by the late pwo (master navigator) Pius “Mau” Piailug.

(Photo source: D. Dey)




(Photo source: http://www.hawaiialive.org/viewer.php?record=358&title=%E2%80%98A%3A+The+Racing+Canoe+of+Prince+K%C5%ABhi%C5%8

D) In the newly renovated Pacific Hall, there is a Pacific canoe morphology display and a

wooden inland map of Oceania (as the floor in the center of the first story) in which islands nations are delineated by name and canoe style. There is also a Fijian canoe suspended overhead

(http://www.bishopmuseum.org/kaelele/2013/spring/pacific_hall.html#.Uah5QpyjLIc).

(Photo source: D. Dey)

After the two spruce logs that would become the hulls of Hawaiʻi’s second traditional canoe Hawaiʻiloa were shipped from Alaska and delivered to the museum grounds, a long Aframe structure was erected to shelter the logs as well as those who worked on them. Wright

“Bo” Bowman, Jr. served as the kahuna kālai waʻa (i.e., the master canoe carver) who built Hawaiʻiloa, having learned from his father (who had created the ʻiako and other components of Hōkūleʻa). To this day the museum’s Bowman Hālau Waʻa still serves as a place where people (especially children) gather to carry on cultural traditions.

http://www.hawaiialive.org/viewer.php?record=358&title=%E2%80%98A%3A+The+Racing+Canoe+of+Prince+K%C5%ABhi%C5%8D




http://www.bishopmuseum.org/kaelele/2013/spring/pacific_hall.html#.Uah5QpyjLIc

http://www.bishopmuseum.org/kaelele/2013/spring/pacific_hall.html#.Uah5QpyjLIc




(Photo sources: PVS, http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/index/founder_and_teachers/wright_bowman_jr.html, & D. Dey)

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Standards: Nā Honua Mauli Ola

• ‘Ike Lāhui (Cultural Identity Pathway)

• ‘Ike ʻŌlelo (Language Pathway)

• ‘Ike Honua (Sense of Place Pathway) GLOs

• GLO 3: Complex Thinker: 3.2- Considers multiple perspectives; 3.3-Generates new and

creative ideas and approaches.

• GLO 4: Quality Producer: 4.1- Understands what quality performances and products are.

• GLO 6: Effective and Ethical User of Technology: 6.1- Uses a variety of technologies in

producing an idea or product; 6.2- Uses a variety of technologies to access and manage

information; 6.4- Uses the appropriate technologies of communication, collaboration, research,

creativity, and problem solving.

HCPS III

Grades 6-- Science

http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/index/founder_and_teachers/wright_bowman_jr.html

http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/index/founder_and_teachers/wright_bowman_jr.html




• SC.6.2.2: Explain how the needs of society have influenced the development and use of

technologies

• SC.6.7.1: Describe examples of how forces affect an object’s motion.

Grades 8-- The Scientific Process

• SC.8.2.1: Describe significant relationships among society, science, and technology and how one impacts the other.

Common Core

Grades 6-8 Reading Literacy Science & Technical

• 6-8.RST.7: Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text with a

version of that information expressed visually.

Grades 6-8 Writing

• 6-8.W.1: Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

• 6-8.W.2: Write informative/explanatory text to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts,

and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.

NGSS

Middle School Engineering Design

• ETS1.A: Define and delimit engineering problems

• ETS1.B: Develop possible solutions Middle School Motion and Stability: Forces and Interaction

• PS2.A: Forces and Motion—How can one predict an object’s continued motion, changes in

motion, or stability?

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Resources and Materials:

Books & Reading Materials

• A Canoe For Uncle Kila

Materials

• Waʻa parts & materials handout

• The curriculum packet “Hawaiian Canoe Building Traditions”

• Polynesian Voyaging Society’s Basic Crew Training Manual (page 35)

• Moolelo O Moikeha (provided in Hawaiian Language from Ke Kumu Aupuni) by Samuel

Mānaiakalani Kamakau (English version: http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/ike/moolelo/moikeha.html)

http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/ike/moolelo/moikeha.html

http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/ike/moolelo/moikeha.html




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Instructional Procedures:

1. ENGAGE:

• Students read the story A Canoe For Uncle Kila.

• Hawaiian medium students also read Moolelo O Moikeha.

2. EXPLORE:

• Students make a list of the activities (e.g., gathering materials) leading up to and during the construction of a traditional Hawaiian canoe. Students also create a list of the materials (e.g., specific plants) needed to construct different parts of a canoe.

• Hawaiian medium students also answer questions relating to Moolelo O Moikeha.

3. EXPLAIN:

• Students create a storyboard (using words and pictures) for each important stage in

canoe construction, explaining why certain materials are used and why the canoe was constructed in this way.

• Hawaiian-speaking students create a genealogy chart for Moikeha and his descendants (using the worksheet provided), and explain how this chart relates to migration patterns in the Pacific.

4. ELABORATE/EXTEND:

• Students view the line drawings of single- and double-hulled canoes from the Hawaiian Canoe Building Traditions handouts and the line drawing of Hōkūleʻa

(from the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s Basic Crew Training Manual, page 35) and create their own line drawing for a single and double hull canoe labeling each of the parts.

5. EVALUATE:

• English and Hawaiian medium students will use a provided answer key to assess each other’s Moolelo worksheets and genealogy charts.

• Students float their canoes and test their capacity to hold weight (i.e., pennies). Students

discuss design strengths and flaws based on their tests, and suggest possible design changes to improve on their original designs.

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References:

Finney, B. (2003). Sailing in the wake of the ancestors: Reviving Polynesian voyaging. Honolulu, HI: Bishop Museum Press.

Irwin, G. (2006). Voyaging and settlement. In K.R. Howe (Ed.), Vaka moana: Voyages of the

ancestors (pp. 54-99). Auckland, NZ: Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Kyselka, W. (1987). An ocean in mind. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaiʻi Press.

Rolett, B. V. (2007). Introduction, part III: Southeast China and the emergence of Austronesian seafaring. In T. Jiao (Ed.), Lost maritime cultures: China and the Pacific (pp. 54-61). Honolulu, HI: Bishop Museum Press.

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