KILAUEA — Since May 1, seven Native Hawaiians and seven Micronesians have focused their attention on something that has inspired awe, stirred imaginations, and pushed them to excellence: their building by hand of a 20-foot canoe. The work blends the
KILAUEA — Since May 1, seven Native Hawaiians and seven Micronesians have focused their attention on something that has inspired awe, stirred imaginations, and pushed them to excellence: their building by hand of a 20-foot canoe.
The work blends the Hawaiian and Micronesian cultures.
From under a thatched roof on land in Kilauea, the men, in building the canoe, use methods and tools whose origins date back a thousand years and more.
The men, who include master canoe carvers and navigators from Ifalik in the Eastern Caroline Islands, work with a variety of handmade adzes to create the canoe.
The canoe-builder use adzes with flat blades to shape the hull and keel, and curved adz blades to gouge out the interior of a tree that is to become an ocean-voyaging canoe.
Two years earlier at the same spot where the latest canoe is being carved, a small group of Hawaiians and Micronesians created a 16-foot-long fishing canoe.
The builders of that canoe believed it was the first hand-carved koa outrigger canoe built on Kaua’i in more than 200 years, and the first built on Kaua’i since the death of King Kaumuali’i in 1824.
The builders hope both projects will revive the art of building and sailing canoes that was commonly practiced in the Pacific prior to westernization several hundred years ago.
That means, for instance, the use of adzes in place of power tools, and the use of the rib of palm fronds in place of modern measuring equipment.
One of the adz steel blades that has been used dates back 150 years, the result of an apparent trade between an Ifalik islander and German merchant. Germans occupied islands in Micronesia at one time, and conducted commerce there.
Machines can be used to make canoes faster, but that is not the point behind the project, said Peter Narburgh, on whose property the project is unfolding.
“Things made by adzes have more detail and beauty,” he said. “There are many cases where a handmade item has more intrinsic value than something that has been made by machinery. The canoe is that.”
The project started on May 1, and is anticipated to be completed in four months.
The project is moving along at a fast clip anyway, because the canoe is being crafted by veteran Micronesian canoe-builders who have fine-tuned their skills.
The canoes they built can be used offshore, and on ocean voyages.
A small team of Micronesians came two years ago to build the first canoe, which is designed for offshore fishing.
That team was led by Santus Wichimai, an expert canoe-builder and a former vice House speaker for the Yap Legislature in the Federal States of Micronesia.
He is married to the daughter of the late Moses Keale, a well-known Hawaiian community leader from Anahola and the former Kaua’i and Ni’ihau trustee on the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Wichimai now lives in Anahola.
Wichimai, who is leading the latest effort, has built numerous canoes over 40 years of living on Ifalik, and is leading the current canoe-building project.
Other Micronesian members of the team that includes master canoe builders and navigators are Lucas Heimai, Aklino Albis and Thomas Hachiglit.
Working side by side, Micronesians and Hawaiians go about the shaping of the canoe, slowly, methodically, and rhythmically.
From a site offering views of the jungles and mountains in the distance, with birds chirping nearby, the Micronesians share their bettlenut, talk story in their native tongue, and laugh as they go about their work.
“The pace they move at brings a line of sensitivity we have lost because we (westerners) have a faster pace of life,” Narburgh said.
The airfare of the Micronesians from Ifalik to Hawai’i was paid for by leaders with the Courtyard by Marriott Kauai at Waipouli Beach, and donors from the North Shore, Narburgh said.
The Hawaiian contingent includes Hanalei residents Robert Pa and Vince Napolis, who worked on the rigging of the Hawaiian voyaging canoe Hokule’a in 1975.
Wichimai’s son, Keiki Wichimai, a resident of Anahola, said the project perpetuates a Micronesian tradition that goes back a few thousand years, when the first builders used sharp stones to create boats that were vital to the survival of folks from his island.
The canoes were used for fishing, and were later used for ferrying islanders to other islands in the South Carolinas.
The latest project is essential to perpetuating a way of life cherished by those from Ifalik, Keiki Wichimai said. “I believe in a few years, that if the knowledge is not passed on, it will be a lost art,” he said. “My father has passed that tradition on to me.”
Narburgh said more islanders are turning to motor-powered boats due to cost and convenience. “It (using motor boats) is up to the chiefs to decide. On Ifalik, the chief decided to remain traditional (deciding the 600 Ifalik islanders should use only canoes),” he said.
The log that is being turned into the canoe is about 20 feet long, and is three feet in diameter. The log was secured from an area in Anahola around 18 months ago, and has been “curing” on Narburgh’s property since then.
The log is ideally suited for the project because it has a slight bend in it, a characteristic that would allow the canoe to head upwind well, and because it has no cracks, the builders said.
Making the canoe involves shaping the log into a hull, turning the log so that its interior can be gouged, attaching prows at both ends of the canoe, attaching the ‘iako, the outrigger boom, and the ama, the outrigger float, to the canoe, and attaching the mast and rigging.
The hulls of the Micronesian fishing and voyaging vessels are different than their Hawaiian counterparts.
The former has keels to increase the ability of canoes to go into the wind, while the latter has rounded hulls which seem to work better in rolling surf that is more commonly found in Hawai’i, Napolis said.
In the meantime, community members have come by to either help build the canoe or just to take in the canoe’s essence, Narburgh said.
Students from the Kanuikapono Learning Center Public Charter School and Kula High & Intermediate School and Kula Elementary School have come by to see the building of the canoe, Narburgh said.
- Lester Chang, staff writer, at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or lchang@pulitzer.net.
