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Overview
According to early nineteenth-century accounts, va'aalo were fishing va'a (canoes) used to chase large schools of surface feeding fish such as the bonito. Va'aalo were about six to eight metres long, with outrigger booms attached to a float and crewed by two people. They were usually owned by people of high social status or by a group of families. Their form was long and sleek, and they had bow and stern covers decorated with lines of white shells fixed to square wooden knobs or stands.
Manufacture
Va'aalo were built from carefully shaped planks tied together with coconut fibre cord in order to make them as light as possible. They were seldom used with a sail, but strong arms and bodies could paddle them through the water with impressive speed. Some va'aalo had a special rod support built onto the outrigger and extending over the stern cover. This held a long bamboo fishing rod to which a trolling lure would be attached.
Acquisition history
This va'aalo arrived at the Dominion Museum (Te Papa's predecessor) in the 1950s. Precise details relating to its origins and history are unknown. By the 1990s it appears that plank-built va'aalo were no longer being made. There are, however, two late twentieth-century equivalents in existence in Samoa. Both are described as va'aalo, but they are made from a single tree in a dugout form. They do, however, retain the shape and lines of plank-built va'aalo.