An Historical Analysis of Waka Unua and the Māori Sail

Abstract

Waka unua, Māori ‘double-hulled canoes’ with rudimentary Oceanic spritsails, have long been considered the most devolved of sailing vessels in East Polynesia, compared to an assumed sophistication of voyaging canoes in the prehistoric colonising era. This traditionalist or conventional hypothesis is discussed with reference to early historical data from New Zealand, including both written descriptions and drawings, according to the conviction that neither is intrinsically more reliable or informative than the other. Analysis of these sources, particularly those that refer to the Moutohorā (Bay of Plenty) canoe observed in 1769, does not support the conventional model. Instead of expedient construction, waka unua hulls were built to a New Zealand-wide pattern. Similarly, instead of an Oceanic spritsail, the Māori sail was an Oceanic double spritsail which had independent spars rather than a fixed mast. It was deployed before the wind and struck in reaching conditions. There is no plausible historical evidence of the Oceanic spritsail or lateen in New Zealand before the 1820s and it is argued that the Oceanic double spritsail was the only sailing rig used in pre-European New Zealand. Some inferences for understanding early East Polynesian voyaging are noted.