The evolution of pacific canoe rigs∗

Abstract

mainly on three lines of modern data; linguistics,2 archaeology of Lapita and related sites3 and the distribution of genetic factors in humans and cultivated plants.4 From these extensive subjects we can safely infer that there was a great deal of frequent to-and-fro movement by sea, not only by over-the-water col onists, but also follow-up by regular contact, whether trade or marauding. Movement between islands requires boats of some kind, however, and con veyance of plant shoots requires excellent boats that would also carry pigs, chickens, fire, family and trade cargo. However, when we try to piece together a theory of what the boats and rigs might have been like, we run into a situation which has been confused in the literature for the past half century.5 The pre sent intention is to examine recent theories about the origins of Pacific maritime transport, to introduce some new ideas that have originated from my own fieldwork on outrigger canoes in Indonesia, and to reconstruct a picture of what was possible and probable over the long periods when movement by sea was clearly taking place. The key elements in the new picture are that rigs and outrigger canoe design, like cultivated plants, take a very long time to evolve their balanced place in the total situation, and that probably they must have been developing slowly in the Indonesian archipelago long before the Austronesian language family spread from southeast Asia.6 This conclusion, based partly on the ex