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ʻA: The Racing Canoe of Prince Kūhiō

Hele ‘e ka wa‘a

The speed of a canoe.
Said of a fast traveler*

The early Oceanic peoples that settled the Pacific Islands were a canoe culture. They explored vast stretches of ocean more than a millennium prior to Columbus’ arrival. Recent discoveries by Bishop Museum Chairman of Anthropology Dr. Tianlong Jiao point towards great maritime cultures of the southeastern coast of China as possible forefathers of these Austronesian peoples. Arrival at a destination for these early explorers did not mean an end to the necessity or usefulness of the canoe. This tool remained a fundamental part of their lives as they fished, surfed, traversed their new environment and also often sailed return voyages to the lands from which they came.

One of the most highly honored members of early Hawaiian society was the kālai wa‘a (canoe carver). This kahuna held knowledge of the complex plans for building a canoe. With this information a people could be supplied with plentiful amounts of fish or be carried as a warring army to battle. Kamehameha I is said to have relied on nearly a hundred kahuna kālai wa‘a in the building of his massive peleleu (double-hulled war canoe) fleet that assisted in his plan to unify the Hawaiian Islands. These kāhuna knew the forests well and used clues from nature in selecting the right tree for a canoe. One such sign was the ‘elepaio, a bird that would alight on all koa trees but peck only on those that were not sound. One traditional Hawaiian mo‘olelo speaks of the canoe goddess Lea who at the death of her favored child buries him. From that spot rose the ‘elepaio that would assist all canoe builders to come.
 
There were many types of canoes in ancient Hawai‘i from the single-hulled outrigger or wa‘a kaukahi, to the large double-hulled canoe or wa‘a kaulua. Originally these canoes, even the massive peleleu, were cut from single logs. An enormous loss of native koa forests has caused modern day large canoe projects to use other sources. In the early nineteen hundreds Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana‘ole took part in efforts to recapture the importance of the canoe in Hawaiian society. The canoe ‘A, a waʻa kialoa or racing canoe, held at the Bishop Museum was owned and raced by the Prince and is believed to be the first canoe built in historic times for racing. Soon after, canoe clubs were created and helped to revive and promote the ancient sport. Hawai‘i became the birthplace of a contemporary outrigger canoe-racing scene that now encompasses many nations and thousands of clubs. In Hawai‘i each year, State championships are held with determined paddlers racing across Hawaiian waters aboard koa canoes. Long-distance inter-island races are also held which remind paddlers today of the skill and strength of the originators of what is now the official sport of Hawai‘i.
 
* Pukui, Mary Kawena. ʻOlelo noʻeau: Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings. Bernice P. Bishop Museum special publication 71. no.736, p81. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1983.
 
Location: Bishop Museum
Collection: Kapi‘olani-Kalaniana‘ole Collection
Artifact Number: C.04411

Documents

Parts of a canoe
Canoe Building

Images

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Image from Bishop Museum Archives, Honolulu, Hawaii. Images are not to be re-used without permission.

Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana‘ole, Hawai‘i.

Call Number: People. Kalaniana‘ole, 1894-1922, folder 3.

Image from Bishop Museum Archives, Honolulu, Hawaii. Images are not to be re-used without permission.

Graphite, ink, wash and watercolor drawing by John Webber, ca. 1778.

As the official artist aboard Captain James Cook’s third voyage through the Pacific (1776-1780), it was John Webber who visually defined for much of eighteenth-century Europe what the distant and exotic peoples and places of this relatively unknown world were like. His commission on this voyage was defined as ethnographic. His work served as a visual history to accompany the written accounts of Cook and his crew. Webber recorded landscapes, scenery, initial contact and other important aspects of society. These images offer a very rare glimpse at life prior to the swift and dramatic changes that would come soon after. The publication and marketing of these well-recorded voyages in the 1785 titled A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, undertaken by the Command of His Majesty, for making discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere spurred great interest in this part of the globe.

Webber was not only a skilled artist, but also a prolific one. When he returned to England in 1780, he displayed over two hundred sketches made from the voyage. His initial work was developed, by himself and others, into finished engravings. These were published along with the official journals of Captain Cook in 1784. The death of Cook on the final voyage would only intensify interest in the expedition and Webber’s depictions. His work aboard Cook’s ships would eventually earn him a place in the prestigious Royal Academy, which was patronized by King George III.

Webber’s sketches while in Hawai‘i are invaluable as rare looks into early Hawaiian life, it is essential to remember that his representations were created through a lens that carried inherent ideas and understandings of an eighteenth-century European worldview. Webber’s art training prepared him to draw the European body and character. This specific view greatly shaped the way in which he drew Hawaiians. Webber was truly imaging the “other.” Also, both the written and sketched accounts of the voyage were affected by political concerns in Europe at the time. Many of the most commonly seen images that came to represent early Hawai‘i, are indeed second and third generation “workings” of his initial drawings. The sketches and watercolors that Webber created during the voyage were later adapted by engravers and others. These usually better known “finished products” were often significantly different than the original drawings.

This watercolor from the Bishop Museum Art Collection was sketched from a scene that Webber witnessed at Kealakekua Bay, on the western side of the Big Island of Hawai‘i. A double-hulled canoe appeared at Kealakekua where Cook’s ships had anchored. Aboard the canoe are 12 masked rowers, one of whom appears to be carrying a feathered ki‘i, or image. The rowers paddled by the European vessels and continued on to shore with no explanation as to their mission.

Collection: Art Collection
Call Number: Art. E.C. Hawaiian. Transportation. Canoes.
Artifact Number: SXC 96640
Location: Bishop Museum Archives

Image from Bishop Museum Archives, Honolulu, Hawaii. Images are not to be re-used without permission.

In 1973 the Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded. Its mission was to build a double hulled canoe and “retrace the legendary voyages that once linked those far-flung islands and in doing so demonstrate to skeptics that the ancient Polynesians could have intentionally sailed across vast stretches of the Pacific without navigational instruments when most seafaring peoples were still hugging continental shores.”* Indeed while Kānaka Maoli held many oral traditions of great navigators such as Mo‘ikeha, Pa‘ao and Hawai‘iloa, who navigated these seas centuries prior to Captain Cook’s arrival, many others believed that the Polynesians possessed no such great skill and merely drifted to Hawai‘i on an accidental voyage. This “drift” theory not only stole a history of skilled navigation from Hawaiians, but also worked to create a disconnect between a people and their sacred stories.

The P.V.S. completed its first canoe, Hōkūle‘a (star of gladness), in 1975, and with the help of master navigator Mau Pialug of Satawal, sailed on May 1, 1976 from Honolua Bay, Māui. The crew navigated without modern instruments and arrived to a cheering crowd of thousands thirty-four days later in Tahiti. This voyage of way-finding, not only made a statement about a legacy of skilled navigation for Hawaiians but re-awakened a pride within many Kānaka Maoli that helped drive what has been called a “Hawaiian Renaissance.”

The re-birth of traditional navigation, like farming lo‘i (kalo patches), working the loko i‘a (fishponds) and other traditional practices, also helped to re-connect Kānaka Maoli to ancient epistemologies. These traditional ways of knowing contained thousands of years of accumulated knowledge possessed by their ancestors. Learning navigation also brought insights into ‘ōlelo (language), lā‘au (medicine), ho‘omana (religion) and so much more. A better navigator was a better parent, a better co-worker, and better citizen.

The Hōkūle‘a was based on what was known of ancient voyaging design. Limited knowledge about the skills necessary to construct ancient cordage, sails and other parts however, meant that the canoe also contained many modern materials. The second voyaging canoe built by the society, named Hawai‘iloa, was an attempt to use traditional materials as much as possible. One stumbling block was the inability to find a koa log large enough to build the canoe. Where earlier great fleets were built out of native hardwoods, now, after decades of forestry and cattle grazing, trees like the koa were rare. The amazing breadth of the efforts to reclaim ancient knowledges was made apparent when a group of Native Alaskan tribes stepped forward and donated to the society two beautiful Sitka Spruce logs. In an eloquent explanation of the connection between these two distant peoples, a leader of the Alaskan tribe said, “Both the reality and the symbolism of the [Hawai’iloa] project breathe hope and inspiration into all peoples seeking to maintain their traditions, heritage and culture in a society that does not place a high priority on such things….You do it for the Hawaiian people, but it reaches far beyond. In your canoe you carry all of us who share your vision and aspiration for a people to live and prosper with their future firmly built on the knowledge of their heritage and tradition.”**

*Mission: Polynesian Voyaging Society. P.V.S. Pier 7. Honolulu HI.

**Maillot, Byron. CEO, SeAlaska. Building Hawaiiloa. 1993. P.V.S. Honolulu.

Image from Bishop Museum Archives, Honolulu, Hawaii. Images are not to be re-used without permission.

Hawaiian men with canoes at Waikīkī, Hawai‘i. ca. 1900.

Call Number: E.C. Hawaiian. Transportation. Canoes, folder 1.
Artifact Number: SP 203513

Image from Bishop Museum Archives, Honolulu, Hawaii. Images are not to be re-used without permission.

Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe, ca. 1912.

Call Number: E.C. Hawaiian. Transportation. Canoes, folder 1.
Artifact Number: SP 97018

Image from Bishop Museum Archives, Honolulu, Hawaii. Images are not to be re-used without permission.

Kalaniopu‘u bringing presents to [Captain] Cook by John Webber, 1784.

Collection: Art Collection
Call Number: Art. Ethnic Culture. Hawaiian. Transportation. Canoes.
Artifact Number: SXC 96641
Accession Number: 1922.129