To: baidarka@lists.intelenet.net
Subject: Re: Oneida boats?
From: marc_pettingill@juno.com (Marc F. Pettingill)
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 1996 17:36:29 EST
On Fri, 6 Dec 96 14:09, Wolfgang Brinck wrote:
>I believe that in spite of all the press that bark boats have gotten,
>the most common type of work boat in use before the arrival
>of Columbus was the dugout.
<snip>
>The major advantage of log boats is that you can make them from local
>logs whereas birch bark was only available as a trade item in a lot of
>places.
>
>The main disadvantage of log boats was weight. Hence for portaging and
>war parties, bark boats were much more desirable. However, I think in
>normal peace time use, log boats were a lot more common. Bark canoes
>were also faster than dugouts, hence more desirable for war parties
>when a quick escape was in order.
>There are no books on log boats, however, Tim Kent of Chicago has been
>studying them and is putting together a book. His phone number is
>708 524-9643. He is with the Chicago Symphony and he travels a lot,
>and whenever he goes to a different town, he pops into the local
>museums and documents what's there.
I too know of no books about indigenous log canoes of the inland
forest tribes. However, Chapter 5 in "Canoes the World Over"
(Terence T. Quirke, Univ of Illinois Press, Urbanna, 1952) covers the
log canoes of both North and South America in 11 pages, birchbark
canoes alone are covered in 13 pages. At best it is a survey.
A short quote:
" In the interior woodlands of North America, dugouts were made of
light woods like basswood, white pine, or cedar. In shape the dugouts
are much like those of the birchbark canoes, but they are heavier...
In contrast to the general use of soft light woods for dugouts, the
hardwood forests of the Middle West provide a black walnut dugout
found on the Arkansas River. This hardwood is in striking contrast
to the basswood, pine, cedar, and cypress used elsewhere, and
probably owes Its use to lack of a more easily worked, more buoyant,
and equally sturdy, local competitor." [Imagine that puppy done up
bright!]
Simple log canoes are low tech; before the availability of metal tools,
the critical resource was time (and a suitable tree of course). For
large canoes, once a suitable tree was found, land was cleared nearby
and crops planted. Once the crops were up, the canoe builder and his
family, and helpers moved to the site. They lived there during the
lengthy
process of burning the tree down, then at least cutting the trunk again
with fire to the correct length. Then commenced the lengthy process
of hollowing the log, again with fire and shell scrapers. Finally the
roughed out canoe had to be moved to water, this involved the whole
village/extended family group. The canoe was given its final shape at
the shoreline, again with controlled fire and scraping. The canoe
represented considerable societal wealth and could last for generations.
On the other hand, the bark canoe could be built rather quickly.
Materials could be gathered in the course of other work and stored
until needed. A relative high level of skill was required though. There
are documented cases around the Great Lakes of native canoe makers
reverting to making log canoes once metal tools were available after
the arrival of Europeans. Bark canoes had a relatively short life, but
materials for new ones were relatively available when needed.
~marc
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