Neyret, in his Pirogues Oceanennes(1) opens his first volume ,on Australia and Melanesia, with this, as his first, most fundamental type of boat: a Tasmanian flotteur simple:
"Single (or simple) Float: It is a simple roughly trimmed shrub trunk, the big end at the front and the back finished in point, on which the swimmer rides. Thanks to the swollen shape at the front and tapered at the back, the aborigines claim that the crocodiles believe they see one of their kind swimming flush with the water, and do not come to attack him... If this is true, this mode of transport is not recommended near the mouth of the rivers, because, claim other natives (Salomonnais) sharks are very attracted to the crocodile and willingly come to snatch a steak or two. This float is in use along the north and northeast coasts of Australia.This is presented as an implement used by Aboriginal Australians as a river craft." (Translated from the French via Google Translate.)
This is an epiphany for me, connecting stories I was privy to, decades ago about the ancestor of a student of mine. This student, whose exact name has unfortunately slipped my mine, has a Gilbertese name (Chuukese have adopted surnames, a practice encouraged, at least in part, by the Roman Catholic church, who made it a requirement on baptism). His ancestor is said by my son's people to have drifted---in the water---from Kiribati to Nama. One would assume he had held onto some floating object, but I don't know whether this is the case; he was said to have been washing in the waves at the time of his discovery. Such drifts are known to have taken place(2).
This man, Akurupw, was said to have been festooned by barnacles and algae growing on his skin and nails when he washed ashore. He was discovered by a local woman who was performing her morning ablutions at the beach on the windward side of the island, which is less than 1 mile long. According to the story, the woman who discovered him married him. Akurupw, according to islanders alive today, taught Nama islanders shark magic. Arthur Grimble, a former district administrator of the Gilbert and Ellice Islanders at about the time of World War I, described, in A Pattern of Islands(3). a methods used to kill at least one of the most feared sharks, mako and tiger sharks, by swimmers. This story rings of truth.
A simple float of this kind, compels the imagination, potentially filling in some blanks in the story of inter-island movements during low sea level stands, when distances between islands of the W. Pacific / Indian Ocean sphere were greatly diminished. Such a stylized float is unknown in Kiribati, to my knowledge; however I once was privileged to accompany a fishermen of remarkable skill at Aranuka Atoll, whose skill I have never seen surpassed who used a piece of gnarled driftwood, of roughly the dimensions of a four by four inch board, something over a meter long. Cracks on the board served as stashes for fish hooks. Two small sticks fastened across the board served to wind a significant length of monofilament fishing line, sufficient to reach the bottom at a depth of 20 feet or more. A spear, made from a piece of thick iron wire was stuck into a long crack in the board, in case it was needed, with a "sling," a loop made up of inner tube from possibly a tractor tire with a length of thick monofilament into which to notch the spear. This was towed by him across the reef platform, tied to his waist by at least 15' of home-made sennet. A shorter length of sennet, or perhaps piece of salvaged wire, was attached along the length of the board, serving as a stringer for the many fish that he caught---some with the spear; others with the fishing line as he swam on the surface and dangled the hook in front of his quarry---in one case a grouper some 18" long. I do not recall, but he may have been using home-made goggles carved from wood with pieces of glass from the wreck of a WWII airplane. All in less than an hour, he caught enough fish for a large extended family gathering.
This fishing tale is off topic, but it illustrates how a piece of wood, even simpler in some respects---yet quite sophisticated in others---than the Tasmanian floater, can be utilized by atoll dwellers, who are absolutely tied to the sea. In the case of Akurupw, such a float, or perhaps parts of a swamped or broken up canoe, might have served as flotation during a long drift, during which, we might imagine, he may have been able to grab a few fish or jellyfish---I have seen jellyfish cleaned and eaten on Kuria Island.
The next few items in Neyret's volume are rafts, and throughout the book, as it presents canoes from various locations in Melanesia, rafts of varying degrees of sophistication. This simplest are just two logs lashed together.
Along as similar vein, as has been explained to me, fishermen from Nama Island are forbidden to fish on a drifting log. Life on a 1 mile-long coral island is intimately tied to the sea; survival depends on skill in a huge variety of fishing methods. Blue water fishermen in the west, on overpowered, oversized boats know that fish congregate around and under drifting logs. Fish have no eyelids or irises, so the shade under a drifting log may be be a previous resource for them. On Nama they an extremely precious resource, so much so that it is a regulated one. All Nama islanders belong to one of three clans. Each clan holds proprietorship over one of three types of drift logs. When a log is spotted, note is taken of which type, and, according to traditional practice, back on shore the chief of the clan, appropriate to the type of drift log, is notified of the spotting of a drift log. The clan then goes into action.
Each clan has a special fish strap for its specific drift log. I do not recall the categories of drifting logs, but I remember that one of them is cut logs that have fallen off of ships; one imagines these are also valued for lumber for canoe building. Another is a whole tree, roots and all, with soil still attached. It seems logical, without knowing such details, that the soil might also be prized. I do not remember the third type of log.
The clan members bring the trap, now, out of mothballs, so to speak. These are said to be oversize traps, needing to be strapped onto the canoe (or canoes?). After being transported out to the trap, an apparently highly ritualized process is involved the fishing; some living persons may know aspects of this process, and logs may even be fished today in accordance to these restrictions; however, most such fishing methods have lost at least part of the details involved, including perhaps magical incantations or formulae. Expertise on the islands is tightly held, and these methods are probably steeped in secrecy. Attachment of the trap to the log is such a ritualized process. A certain member of the party is expert in swimming under the log with the rope (hand made, no doubt), with knowledge of chants and preparations. This person, after appropriate ritualized preparations, jumps into the water, and swims under the log, chanting to himself a protective chant or prayer, for protection from the sharks that are probably nearby.
I do not know further details about this process, which was explained to me by Akitaro, the uncle of my son.
I am interested in the calendar of natural signs (esissin) that predicts, among other things, aggregations of fishes at certain passes in atolls---for annual spawning aggregations. For example, Eryrthina cf. variegata (paar) flowering is a signal for pelagic fishing across the Pacific. On New Caledonia and Hawaii (for another species of Erythrina) both, it is a sign for shark hunting; elsewhere in Polynesia, for whaling season. A man from Lamotrek Atoll, asked "Do you know the tree that has a star?" It was Erythrina sp. The star is Pleiades, and they are associated, according to this man, with the time of drift logs.
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Notes
1. Neyret, J., 1974. Pirogues océaniennes, tome 1: Mélanésie. Paris: Association des amis du Musée de la Marine (chapitre Nouvelle-Calédonie: 19-30.
2. A shorter drift, perhaps less spectacular, yet inspiring drift from Kiribati (as the Gilbert Islands are now known) to Majuro, Marshall Islands on a small boat by a young child, as I was told, who later became a medical doctor on the latter island.
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