Canoe | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

April 13, 2026 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Voyaging … and Returning

“In the South Pacific the North Star cannot be seen – north is a dark area of the sky over which stars arch on their nightly paths. One night the navigator discovers a new star just above the horizon in the center of the place of darkness.”

“And as time passed the new star did not appear to move. … Soon everyone was awake to see this miracle; this star that did not move. … Could it have been placed by the gods to light our way to new land?”

Later, “… a massive cloud bank on the western horizon appeared to be standing still, not moving in the wind – a sign that it might be building over an unseen island. … Then we saw a bird, it was homeward bound after its day of fishing. Flying over the water it headed straight for the strange cloud bank in the west and we knew land was near.”

“Looking anew at the clouds we saw a sight difficult to comprehend. What had appeared as an unusual could formation was now revealed as the peak of a gigantic mountain, a mountain of unbelievable size, a white mountain …” (Herb Kane; The Discovery of Hawaiʻi)

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, recent studies suggest it was about AD 900–1000 AD that “Polynesian explorers first made their remarkable voyage from central Eastern Polynesia Islands, across the doldrums and into the North Pacific, to discover Hawai‘i.” (Kirch)

The motivations of the voyagers varied. Some left to explore the world or to seek adventure. Others departed to find new land or new resources because of growing populations or prolonged droughts and other ecological disasters in their homelands. (PVS)

By the time European explorers entered the Pacific in the 15th century almost all of the habitable islands had been settled for hundreds of years and oral traditions told of explorations, migrations and travels across this immense watery world. (Kawaharada)

According to Hawaiian oral traditions collected in the 19th century, voyaging continued between Hawai‘i and the South Pacific after the original settlement of Hawai‘i. The motives given for voyaging are various:

Maintaining Family Connections

The earliest traveler mentioned in oral tradition is the goddess Papa, or Walinuʻu; according to tradition she returned to Kahiki because her parents were from there; in Kahiki she became a young woman again; after her rejuvenation, she returned to Hawai‘i. (Kamakau; PVS)

Moʻikeha is said to have sent his son Kila to Tahiti to bring his grandson Laʻamaikahiki to Hawai‘i. (Fornander; PVS)

Marriage

Hawaiʻiloa voyaged from Hawai‘i to Tahiti to search for husbands or wives for his children. He brought back his brother Ki’s first born son Tu-nui-ai-a-te-Atua as a husband for his daughter O‘ahu. (Fornander; PVS)

Keanini (whose mother was from Hawai‘i) sailed from Kahiki to Hawai‘i to marry Ha‘inakolo; he and Ha‘inakolo returned to Kahiki. After they had a child called Leimakani, Ha‘inakolo and Leimakani returned to Hawai‘i. (Kamakau; PVS)

Family Quarrels and Unhappy Love Affairs

Pele, the volcano goddess, quarreled with her sister Namakaokaha‘i, a sea goddess, and left her homeland (the mystical land of Kuaihelani) to come to Hawai‘i. (Emerson; PVS)

Pāʻao feuded with his brother Lonopele. After each killed the other’s son, Pāʻao migrated to Hawai‘i. (Kamakau; PVS)

Burial in Homeland

Laʻamaikahiki took Mo‘ikeha’s bones back to Tahiti for burial. (Fornander; PVS)

Acquiring Mana from the Homeland

Pāʻao, who brought the war god Kūkaʻilimoku to Hawai‘i, returned to Tahiti to bring back a chief of pure blood (Kamakau; PVS)

Escaping Flood and Famine

Pupu-hulu-ana left Kauai during a famine and searched for islands to the east (Kamakau; PVS) ‘Olopana left Waipi‘o for Kahiki after a flood brought on a famine (Kalakaua; PVS)

Maka‘ika‘i – Sightseeing and Adventure

Kaulu “traveled throughout Kahiki, saw all the kingdoms of the world” (Kamakau; PVS) Paumaukua “was a chief who traveled around Kahiki and brought back with him several foreigners”. (Kamakau; PVS)

Mo‘ikeha’s grandson Kaha‘i-a-Ho‘okamali‘i went sightseeing to Tahiti and brought back with him a breadfruit tree from ‘Upolu (Taha‘a in the Society Islands) and planted it at Pu‘uloa, ‘Ewa district, O‘ahu. (Kamakau; PVS)

Obtain Materials or Plants not Available on one’s home island

The tradition of Aka describes a voyage from Hiva (Marquesas) to Rarotonga to obtain highly prized red feathers; the story of Pepe-iu describes a voyage made to bring the breadfruit plant from Hiva to Rarotonga. (PVS)

By the time Europeans arrived in Hawai‘i in the 18th century, voyaging between Hawai‘i and the rest of Polynesia had ceased for more than 400 years, perhaps the last voyager being Pāʻao or Moʻikeha in the 14th century. The reason for the cessation of voyaging is not known. (PVS) (Lots of information here from Polynesian Voyaging Society)

The image shows a Herb Kane depiction of readying a canoe for a voyage. (Herb Kane)

June 18, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Queen Kapiʻolani’s Canoe

In April 1887, Queen Kapiʻolani and Princess Liliʻuokalani traveled to England to participate in the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. They first sailed to San Francisco, traveled by train across the North American continent, spent some time in Washington and New York; they then sailed to England.

Upon their return from Europe, Queen Kapiʻolani and her entourage stopped again in Washington, DC. At that time, they toured the National Museum, later to become the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. As a result of that visit, Queen Kapiʻolani gifted the museum with a Hawaiian outrigger canoe to add to their collection. (OHA)

“The royal yacht of Queen Kapiʻolani of Hawaii is in the National museum, and may be passed and re-passed without attracting the notice of the sight-seeker.”

“High against the eastern wall it is placed, and from the floor little can be seen except the small sail of straw. This royal boat was once a log, and with rude instruments was hollowed into the semblance of a canoe, making a craft 18 feet long and but 18 inches wide.”

“It is such a boat as the Hawaiians used long before Columbus sailed on his voyage to a new country, and it was in such a boat that the Hawaiians sailed from the western Islands in the Pacific to the Samoan islands.”

“The little craft is what is known as an outrigger canoe, and has a small float extended on arms from either side of the canoe. This plan renders it impossible for the boat to be upset.”

“The sail is of the rudest kind, made of plaited straw, supported on rudely-hewn masts. In the boat is a gourd to be used for bailing out the water and also a net with which to catch fish.”

“In such a boat the proud queen of the Hawaiians went forth, on the waters of her country to woo the cool breezes of the ocean. In the bottom of the boat is found the strangest thing of all, a small English flag of the commonest type, which the queen was wont to place in the stern of her pleasure boat.”

“… Liliʻuokalani was asked lately if she remembered this craft of her royal sister-in-law, and answered that she did most distinctly, and even related the circumstance which led to the boat being given to the museum.”

She noted, “I accompanied Queen Kapiʻolani on her visit to England in 1887, and on our return we stopped for some time in this city. One day I accompanied the queen and her party, consisting of Col. Boyd, Col Iaukea and Gen. Dominis, to the museum.”

“After looking around the different apartments the curator showed us a boat, something like a canoe, with a man at the bow, and asked the queen if our canoes were like that in Hawaii. The queen, said yes, and that she would be pleased to contribute one to the museum on her return to her own country.” (Washington Post; Decatur Daily, August 30, 1897)

When Queen Kapiʻolani sent this fishing canoe to the Smithsonian, it was already quite old. A hole at the bottom of the canoe suggests that it had hit a reef and would have been difficult to repair. (Smithsonian)

Outrigger canoes of this kind were formerly quite extensively used for fishing and other purposes by the natives in Hawaiʻi, in the Sandwich Islands, but in recent years they have been superseded by boats more conventional in their construction and better adapted to the needs of the fisherman. (Smithsonian)

This is an open, sharp-ended, round-bottomed, keelless dugout canoe, with low superstructure fastened to upper part of hull, and provided with small balance log lashed to the ends of two outriggers. It is rigged with a single mast and loose-footed spritsail. (Smithsonian) The canoe was added to the Smithsonian collection on January 25, 1888.

The canoe was refurbished for a subsequent display in the National Museum of Natural History exhibit “Na Mea Makamae o Hawaiʻi – Hawaiian Treasures,” 2004-2005.

Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education (SCMRE) collaborated closely with the National Museum of Natural History to restore a 19th-century Hawaiian outrigger canoe; it is reportedly the oldest existing Hawaiian canoe in the world.

In the years since Hawaii’s Queen Kapiʻolani presented the canoe to the Smithsonian, the boat’s wood had deteriorated. A SCMRE team, including a senior furniture conservator, restored the bow, stern and an outrigger boom and replaced the original coconut-fiber lashings. Wherever possible they used materials that were both handmade and native to Hawaii. (Smithsonian)

Throughout the years of late-prehistory, AD 1400s – 1700s, and through much of the 1800s, the canoe was a principal means of travel in ancient Hawaiʻi. Canoes were used for interisland and inter-village coastal travel.

Most permanent villages initially were near the ocean and at sheltered beaches, which provided access to good fishing grounds, as well as facilitating convenient canoe travel.

Although the canoe was a principal means of travel in ancient Hawaiʻi, extensive cross-country trail networks enabled gathering of food and water and harvesting of materials for shelter, clothing, medicine, religious observances and other necessities for survival.

These trails were usually narrow, following the topography of the land. Sometimes, over ‘a‘ā lava, they were paved with water-worn stones. Back then, land travel was only foot traffic, over little more than trails and pathways.

The image shows Kapiʻolani’s Canoe in the Na Mea Makamae o Hawaiʻi exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History, 2004–2005.

August 14, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Ships versus Canoes

Humans have tended to live near water, and it is natural to make use of things that float. Logs or bundles of reeds were lashed together to form rafts; hollow trunks can be improved to become dugout canoes. (HistoryWorld)

In ancient marine times, people used rafts, logs of bamboo, bundles of reeds, air filled animal skins and baskets to traverse small water bodies. The first boat was a simple frame of sticks lashed together. (Karanc)

The earliest known boats were log-boats or dugouts, with examples from Holland and Denmark going back to the Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic. (Wright) Carbon dating of a Danish dugout canoe shows its age at between 8040 and 7510 BC.

Over five thousand years ago, in Mesopotamia (present day Syria and Iraq, between the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf,) it is thought that the first sailing vessels were used (a square sail acted like a modern-day spinnaker to run with the wind.)

About 3000 BC, Greek ships had sails, and were pushed along by the wind. Small trading ships usually stayed close to the shore, so the sailors did not get lost. Greek warships had oars as well as sails – some as long as 115-feet.

The earliest plank-built boats (planks attached to a ribbed frame) are from Ancient Egypt and include the royal barge of Pharaoh Cheops, found dismantled in a rock-crypt in front of the great Pyramid and dated to about 2600 BC.

The invention of the sail was the greatest turning point in maritime history. The sails replaced the action of human muscles and sail boats could embark on longer trips with heavier loads. Earlier vessels used square sails that were best suited for sailing down wind. Fore and aft sails were devised later.

Egyptians take the credit for developing advanced sailing cargo ships. These were made by lashing together and sewing small pieces of wood. These cargo ships were used to transport great columns of stone for monument building. (Karanc)

Sea-going vessels followed and are depicted in bas-reliefs and wall paintings. In the Aegean a positive regatta of boats was depicted in fresco on the walls of a building destroyed by the great volcanic eruption of the island of Thera (Santorini) around 1400 BC.

In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl, departed from Peru on the balsawood raft Kon-Tiki, demonstrating that a vessel made of nine balsa tree trunks up to 45-feet long, 2-feet in diameter, lashed together, could have been carried people 5,000-miles across the Pacific Ocean out 1,500 years ago.

In 1970, using Ra II, a papyrus reed lashed boat, Heyerdahl showed such vessels could cross the Atlantic, from Morocco to Barbados.

As boat designed evolved, the Vikings (around the 8th – 12th centuries) incorporated a keel into the hull design. Sails evolved, too; most look to the development of the triangular sail as the significant innovation (called lanteen (Latin) found in the Persian Gulf. Combined, this is basically what we know as today’s sailboat.

Before European open ocean exploration began, Eastern Polynesia had been explored and settled. (Herb Kane)

More than three thousand years ago, the uninhabited islands of Samoa and Tonga were discovered by an ancient people. With them were plants, animals and a language with origins in Southeast Asia; and along the way they had become a seafaring people.

Arriving in probably a few small groups, and living in isolation for centuries, they evolved distinctive physical and cultural traits. Samoa and Tonga became the cradle of Polynesia, and the center of what is now Western Polynesia. (Herb Kane)

Because of the great distances, these must have been sailing double-hulled canoes, with paddling as auxiliary power used only for brief periods-to launch or land canoes, or keep off a dangerous lee shore.

Changes in the primary power mode of the larger canoes of the Hawaiian Islands from sail to paddling, followed by a return to sail.

Voyaging vessels were double-hull; hulls were deep enough to track well while sailing across the wind or on a close reach into the wind. The round-sided V hulls provided lateral resistance to the water while under sail. (Herb Kane)

The most widely distributed and presumably most ancient sail was a triangle made up of strips of fine matting sewn together and mounted to two spars, one serving as a mast; the other, as a boom, usually more slender and either straight or slightly curved.

Throughout Eastern Polynesia, the same basic design probably persisted throughout the era of long distance two-way voyaging. (Herb Kane)

The double-hulled voyaging canoes were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, like the one between Hawai‘i and Tahiti.

And though these double-hulled canoes had less carrying capacity than the broad-beamed ships of the European explorers, the Polynesian canoes were faster: one of Captain Cook’s crew estimated one could sail “three miles to our two.” (Kawaharada)

In 1976, Hokuleʻa, the double-hulled Hawaiian voyaging vessel, demonstrated the Hawaiʻi – South Pacific sailing, when it left Hawaiʻi and reached Tahiti. (Hokuleʻa continues today on a worldwide voyage.)

Voyaging between Hawaiʻi and the South Pacific appears to have ceased several centuries before European arrival. No explanation is found in the traditions. (Herb Kane)

As long distance voyaging declined, the need shifted from voyaging canoes to large canoes for chiefly visits and warfare within the Hawaiian Islands, resulting in changes in canoe design.

For these short coastal and inter-island trips, paddling replaced sailing as the dominant power mode. Never certain when hospitality might turn sour, chiefs prudently traveled with bodyguards. (Herb Kane)

Most permanent villages initially were near the ocean and at sheltered beaches, which provided access to good fishing grounds, as well as facilitating convenient canoe travel.

Fast forward to post-‘contact’ and the time of the Islands’ unification; a new style of boat was in the islands and Kamehameha started to acquire and build them.

The first Western-style vessel built in the Islands was the Beretane (1793.) Through the aid of Captain George Vancouver’s mechanics, after launching, it was used in the naval combat with Kahekili’s war canoes off the Kohala coast. (Thrum)

Encouraged by the success of this new type of vessel, others were built. The second ship built in the Islands, a schooner called Tamana (named after Kamehameha’s favorite wife, Kaʻahumanu,) was used to carry of his cargo of trade to the missions along the coast of California. (Couper & Thrum, 1886)

From 1796 until 1802 the kingdom flourished. Several small decked vessels were built. (Case) According to Cleveland’s account, Kamehameha possessed at that time twenty small vessels of from twenty to forty tons burden, some even copper-bottomed. (Alexander)

Canoe_Builder-(HerbKane)

Ancient-Voyaging-Canoe-(HerbKane)

Masked_Paddlers_at_Kealakekua-(HerbKane)

Kamehameha’s_Double_Canoe-(HerbKane)

Kamehameha_Waikiki_Landing-(HerbKane)

Arrival_of_Keoua_Below_Puukohola-(HerbKane)

Easter Island Petroglyph and Herb Kane Rendition of what Original Canoe may have looked like-PVS

Hokulea_Arrival_in_Tahiti-1976

Hokulea_parts-labeled

Pesse Dugout

Ra_II_1970

Mesopotamia-map

Viking Longboat

Triangular-Lateen_Sails

Kon-Tiki_1947

January 22, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Voyaging Canoes

Before European open ocean exploration began, Eastern Polynesia had been explored and settled. (Herb Kane)

Changes in the primary power mode of the larger canoes of the Hawaiian Islands from sail to paddling, followed by a return to sail.

Throughout Eastern Polynesia, the same basic design probably persisted throughout the era of long distance two-way voyaging. (Herb Kane)

The double-hulled voyaging canoes were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, like the one between Hawai‘i and Tahiti.

Voyaging between Hawaiʻi and the South Pacific appears to have ceased several centuries before European arrival. No explanation is found in the traditions. (Herb Kane)

As long distance voyaging declined, the need shifted from voyaging canoes to large canoes for chiefly visits and warfare within the Hawaiian Islands, resulting in changes in canoe design.

Most permanent villages initially were near the ocean and at sheltered beaches, which provided access to good fishing grounds, as well as facilitating convenient canoe travel.

In the 1970s the Polynesian Voyaging Society built and launched a Polynesian voyaging canoe with the intention of sailing it from Hawai‘i to Tahiti using only traditional techniques. The canoe, christened Hōkūle‘a, was piloted by Mau Piailug, a navigator from the Caroline Islands.

The goal of the project was to show that, although no such voyage had been made for hundreds of years, ancient Polynesian voyagers had been able to navigate distances of more than 2,500 miles using nothing more than their knowledge of the wind, sea, and stars.

On May 1, 1976, the Hōkūle‘a set sail from the island of Maui. Just before their departure, Mau addressed the crew, telling them how to behave while they were at sea.

“Before we leave,” he told them, “throw away all the things that are worrying you. Leave all your problems on land.” On the ocean, he said, “everything we do is different.”

At all times, the crew would be under the captain’s command: “When he says eat, we eat. When he says drink, we drink.” For three, maybe four weeks, they would be out of sight of land. “All we have to survive on are the things we bring with us…. Remember, all of you, these things,” he concluded, “and we will see that place we are going to.” (PopularScience)

Almost 50-years later, the Hōkūle‘a sailed on the Moananuiākea Voyage. (Moananuiākea refers to the vast waters of the earth’s largest ocean.) (MauiNow) (Art of Voyaging Canoe by Herb Kane.)

January 25, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Eleventh Century

There was conflict in various parts of the world …

It was nearing the end of the Heian period in Japan. The battle of Kawasaki was the first major battle of the Early Nine Years’ War (Zenkunen War) (1051-1063.) (The fighting lasted for twelve years (or nine if you subtract short periods of ceasefire and peace.))

The war was fought between the forces of the powerful Abe clan of the far northeast of the main island of Honshū, led by Abe no Sadato, and those of the Minamoto clan, acting as agents of the Imperial Court, and led by Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and his son Yoshiie.

In 1062, Minamoto no Yoriyoshi, along with his son, led an assault on an Abe fortress on the Kuriyagawa. They diverted the water supply, stormed the earthworks and stockade, and set the fortress aflame. After two days of fighting, Sadato surrendered.

At about this time, the seiitaishogun or shōgun became de facto rulers of Japan through powerful regional clans with support from samurai (bushi) serving as the military nobility.

Europe was at war as well; on September 28, 1066, William (William the Conqueror) of Normandy (Northern France) landed in England on Britain’s southeast coast, with approximately 7,000 troops and cavalry.

He then marched to Hastings; on October 14, 1066 William defeated King Harold (England) at the Battle of Hastings. After further military efforts, William was crowned king (the first Norman King of England) on Christmas Day 1066.

At the end of the century, Europe saw the first of the Crusades, launched on November 27, 1095 by Pope Urban II; it was a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquests of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. (Between 1095 and 1291 there were seven major crusades.)

Stuff was happening in the Pacific, as well.

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, recent studies suggest it was about this same time that “Polynesian explorers first made their remarkable voyage from central Eastern Polynesia Islands, across the doldrums and into the North Pacific, to discover Hawai‘i.” (Kirch)

“Most important from the perspective of Hawaiian settlement are the colonization dates for the Society Islands and the Marquesas, as these two archipelagoes have long been considered to be the immediate source regions for the first Polynesian voyagers to Hawai‘i. …”

“In sum, the southeastern archipelagoes and islands of Eastern Polynesia have a set of radiocarbon chronologies now converging on the period from AD 900–1000.” (Kirch)

Research indicates human colonization of Eastern Polynesia took place much faster and more recently than previously thought. Polynesian ancestors settled in Samoa around 800 BC, colonized the central Society Islands between AD 1025 and 1120 and dispersed to New Zealand, Hawaiʻi and Rapa Nui and other locations between AD 1190 and 1290. (Hunt; PVS)

With improved radiocarbon dating techniques and equipment to more than 1,400-radiocarbon dated materials from 47 islands, the model considers factors such as when a tree died rather than just when the wood was burned and whether seeds were gnawed by rats, which were introduced by humans. (PVS)

“There is also no question that at least O‘ahu and Kauai islands were already well settled, with local populations established in several localities, by AD 1200.” (Kirch)

Late and rapid dispersals explain remarkable similarities in artifacts such as fishhooks, adzes and ornaments across the region. The condensed timeframe suggests assumptions about the rates of linguistic evolution and human impact on pristine island ecosystems also need to be revised. (PVS)

While Europeans were sailing close to the coastlines of continents before developing navigational instruments that would allow them to venture onto the open ocean, voyagers from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa began to settle islands in an ocean area of over 10 million square miles.

The settlement took a thousand years and involved finding and fixing in mind the position of islands, sometimes less than a mile in diameter on which the highest landmark was a coconut tree. By the time European explorers entered the Pacific Ocean in the 16th century almost all the habitable islands had been settled for hundreds of years.

The voyaging was all the more remarkable in that it was done in canoes built with tools of stone, bone and coral. The canoes were navigated without instruments by expert seafarers who depended on their observations of the ocean and sky and traditional knowledge of the patterns of nature for clues to the direction and location of islands. (Kawaharada; PVS)

The canoe hulls were dug out from tree trunks with adzes or made from planks sewn together with a cordage of coconut fiber twisted into strands and braided for strength. Cracks and seams were sealed with coconut fibers and sap from breadfruit or other trees.

An outrigger was attached to a single hull for greater stability on the ocean; two hulls were lashed together with crossbeams and a deck added between the hulls to create double canoes capable of voyaging long distances.

The canoes were paddled when there was no wind and sailed when there was; the sails were woven from coconut or pandanus leaves. These vessels were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, such as the one between Hawai‘i and Tahiti.

And though these double-hulled canoes had less carrying capacity than the broad-beamed ships of the European explorers, the Polynesian canoes were faster: one of Captain Cook’s crew estimated a Tongan canoe could sail “three miles to our two.”

By the time Europeans arrived in Hawai‘i in the 18th-century, voyaging between Hawai‘i and the rest of Polynesia had ceased for more than 400 years, perhaps the last voyager being Pā’ao or Moʻikeha in the 14th-century. The reason for the cessation of voyaging is not known.

However, after the 14th-century, the archaeological evidence reveals a dramatic expansion of population and food production in Hawai‘i. Perhaps the resources and energies of the Hawaiian people went into developing their ‘āina; and ties with families and gods on the islands to the south weakened. (Kawaharada; PVS) (Lots of information here from Kirch, Kawaharada and Polynesian Voyaging Society.)