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Provisions for Polynesian Voyages
by Tommy Holmes
[Tommy Holmes, a
freelance researcher and writer, and a top-notch rough-waterman, was
a co-founder of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. He was a crew
member on Hokule'a's first voyage to Tahiti in 1976 and directed
food, plant and animal experiments for the voyage. The following
piece on provisioning is from "Voyaging," the second chapter of his
classic book on canoes The Hawaiian Canoe, first published by
Editions Unlimited in 1981.]
"Mr. Handy has seen ma
[fermented breadfruit] a hundred years old, which is occasionally
eaten at the present time."1
This was admittedly an unusually old batch (though still edible);
the preferred aging time for fermented breadfruit in the Marquesas
was about ten years. The Polynesians preserved most of the meals
they would need for a long canoe voyage by drying or fermenting
either raw or cooked food. Compact, light, nutritious and almost
spoilage free, the voyagers' diet would have consisted of fish and
other marine organisms, bananas, sweet potatoes, yams, breadfruit,
taro, pandanus flour and other regional favorites. For the beginning
of the voyage there would have been a number of fresh food
items-sweet potatoes, yams, taro, breadfruit, drinking coconuts,
bananas and sugar cane.2
Undoubtedly there were
trolling lines out all day, every day. However, on some runs, as
from eastern Polynesia to Hawai'i, there was a wide swath of
relatively unproductive ocean, where marine life is scant. Thus in
voyaging to Hawai'i one could not depend on catching many fish. The
Hokule'a, which both times (1976 and 1980] took courses very
probably similar to ones used many centuries ago, did catch some
fish, though most of them within several hundred miles of an island
group. Even under the most ideal conditions, it would have been
nearly impossible to catch enough fish to sustain a canoe full of
people and animals.
A hearth lined with
stone, coral and sand and fueled by coconut husk and shell enabled
the voyagers to cook at sea. Water was carried in gourds and
sections of bamboo and stored along with drinking coconuts wherever
space or ballast needs dictated. If a canoe encountered or could
seek out a rain squall, water supplies could be supplemented by
collecting water as it ran off the sail; if water was critically
short people could temporarily subsist on the moisture found in the
flesh of freshly caught fish, turtles, sharks and other marine
organisms. Salt water could not effectively be used to stretch a
dwindling water supply; it only hastens the dehydration process.
Water rationing was undoubtedly practiced.
Floating zoos,
Polynesian voyaging canoes carried pigs, chickens and dogs which
were intended as breeding stock for a new settlement, though they
could also be eaten if stores dipped perilously low. Rats were
sometimes uninvited passengers and may have occasionally provided an
emergency meal.
Experience had taught
the Polynesian that very few edible plants grew on previously
uninhabited islands, so with him he took a traveling garden. To
Hawai'i he brought about two dozen varieties of plants, though
probably not all at the same time. Slips, cuttings, tubers and young
plants were first swathed in fresh water-moistened moss, then
swaddled in dry ti-leaf, kapa (bark cloth), or skin from the banana
tree. Finally, these bundles were put in lauhala (pandanus leaf)
casings and hung from the roof of the canoe's hut. Here they would
best be protected from lethal salt water and salt spray. In a few
cases, he took seeds.
On the first voyage of
the Hokule'a down to Tahiti, an attempt was made to transport many
of the same plants the Polynesians originally brought with them to
Hawai'i. Working with only fragments of the once sophisticated
horticultural techniques the Polynesians employed to ensure
viability, some plants died. However, most survived and were planted
upon arrival in Tahiti. The dog, chickens and pig taken down on the
Hokule'a adapted readily, arriving in Tahiti in excellent health.
Notes
1. Handy, E.S.C.,
Native Culture in the Marquesas. Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 1923, p.
188
2. Because of
variations in geoclimatic conditions not all the foods mentioned
were available at all island groups.
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