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Ocean-going canoe found in the Chatham Islands
Hundreds of pieces of a waka, a traditional Polynesian ocean-going canoe, have been discovered in the Chatham Islands, an archipelago 500 miles east of New Zealand. The age of the vessel won’t be known until radiocarbon dating results, but it is certainly historic and is of immense cultural significance for the unprecedented quantity and variety of the surviving material. Study of the recovered pieces of the waka will shed new light on the history of Polynesian ocean travel and boat-building.
The fragments were found in a creek last winter by farmer and fisherman Vincent Dix and his son Nikau. They were readying to take their dogs out for a run on the beach when Nikau spotted some timbers in a creek near their home. The pair retrieved a few pieces thinking they’d make a nice coffee table or something out of them at home. When they put the pieces together, they realized it was taking on a boat-like shape. They returned to the creek after a big storm and found another piece of wood, this one with intriguing carving. That’s when they realized these timbers were part of a waka and notified authorities.
In January, a team of archaeologists began excavating the site with permission of a neighboring landowner to expand the dig and recover all of the pieces of the waka they could find. In the end, more than 450 pieces of the waka were retrieved. The state of preservation is exceptional, thanks to the waterlogged environment, preserving fragile materials like the platter fiber rigging that will be essential in getting accurate radiocarbon dating results.
The recovered parts range from a five-metre long wooden plank with holes for lashings to small pieces of iridescent pāua (abalone) shell and obsidian used in decorations. Several smaller carved planks still hold exquisitely crafted discs of obsidian embedded in the timber. The team also found strings of plaited rope and other woven material, likely part of a sail.
For Maui Solomon, the chair of the Moriori Imi Settlement Trust, there’s no doubt this is a “Moriori ancestral waka” that brought some of his ancestors to the islands hundreds of years ago.
Solomon, a lifelong advocate of the correct telling of Moriori history, also recognises the waka’s notching and long bird-like handles as prominent features used in smaller traditional coastal Moriori boats.
He says the discovery aligns with oral traditions recorded in 19th-century Moriori history.
The find site has been reburied for its own protection, but there are many more pieces of the waka still there awaiting a follow-up excavation. All of the recovered pieces are currently resting comfortably in tanks filled with water from the creek that preserved them for so many years. This will keep the wood stable and prevent the parts from drying out while the next steps are taken in keeping with New Zealand’s heritage laws.
As required by the Protected Objects Act, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage has posted a public notice giving any person or group 60 days to register an ownership claim of the waka as taonga tūturu, protected cultural objects that embody mana (spiritual power), whakapapa (lineage) and mauri (life force). Any ownership claims will be adjudicated by the Māori Land Court, but taonga tūturu cannot be sold or traded either way. The notice expires on April 7th.
The pieces will stay on the island under the supervision of conservators, and tribal authorities have granted researchers permission to take small samples of the waka for radiocarbon dating and other scientific analysis that will hopefully identify the geographic origin of the materials.
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