Va'aalo (bonito canoe)

This is a va'aalo or bonito fishing canoe. According to early nineteenth-century accounts, va'aalo were manned by two people and used to chase large schools of surface-feeding fish, such as the bonito. They measured about six to eight metres long and featured an outrigger with booms attched to a float. The va'aalo were crewed by two people were usually owned by people of high social status, or by a group of families.

Plank built

Va'aalo were built from carefully-shaped planks in order to make them as light as possible. The planks were sewn together with coconut fibre lashing and the joins caulked with bark cloth and breadfruit tree sap. A row of square projections ran down the middle of the stern and bow covers and were often decorated with white pule or cowrie sea shells.

Va’aalo were seldom used with a sail, but strong arms and bodies could paddle them through the water with impressive speed. A long bamboo fishing rod and lure rested on a support built onto the outrigger booms and extending over the stern cover.

The surface of this va’aalo has a flaking blue and red painted finish. The wear and tear suggests it was a working canoe that saw a lot of use. There is an unattached ama (float) and foe (paddles) in the museum that are part of this va’aalo and also painted blue.

Forgotten craft

By the 1990s it appears that plank-built va'aalo were no longer being made in Samoa. The knowledge and craft of shaping and stiching planks was rare. However, two late twentieth-century equivalents were in existence in Samoa. Both are described as va'aalo, but they are made from a single tree in a dugout form and retain the distinctive shape and lines of plank-built va'aalo.

Acquisition history

This va'aalo was gifted to the Dominion Museum (Te Papa’s predecessor) in 1944 by Mr B J L Jukes, a boatbuilder based in Balena Bay, Wellington who also worked in Samoa in 1933.