A Fisherman and His Son Noticed Strange Pieces of Wood on a Beach. They Turned Out to Be Fragments of a Polynesian Canoe
The boat, known as a waka, was unearthed in the Chatham Islands. Researchers say it could be one of the most significant discoveries of its kind
Beginning some 3,000 years ago, Southeast Asian peoples began voyaging out into the Pacific and settling the islands of Polynesia. These ancient sailors navigated by the stars, traversing the ocean in large canoes carved from trees.
Now, one of those boats, known as a waka, has been found in hundreds of pieces in New Zealand’s Chatham Islands. Experts say the artifact could be one of the most significant discoveries of its kind.
“No matter how old it is, we can’t overstate how incredible it is,” Justin Maxwell, the archaeologist leading the investigation, tells the Guardian’s Veronika Meduna. “It will go down as one of the most important finds of all time in Polynesia.”
The boat’s remains were first discovered last year by a young man and his father, Nikau and Vincent Dix, in a creek near their home on the main island, known in the Indigenous Moriori language as Rekohu.
“My son and I were just loading the boat up and taking the dogs for a run up the beach, … just after a big rain,” Vincent, a local fisherman, tells Radio New Zealand. Then, Nikau saw pieces of timber in the river. The wood sported strange holes, and it appeared to be well preserved.
“We were like, ‘Sweet, some new timber for us to use,’” Nikau tells Myjanne Jensen and Hikurangi Jackson of the TV series “Te Ao With Moana.” “We took it all home [and] started putting it together, just trying to find out what it was about. … And we were like, ‘Hey, this is starting to form the shape of a boat.’”
Later, after a big storm, the father and son returned to the site. It was then that Nikau found a piece of carved wood, perhaps the boat’s headpiece. Nikau says that’s when they knew they’d found a “real deal waka.”
The pair notified authorities, and a team of researchers began excavating in January. By the time they were finished, they had recovered more than 450 pieces from the waka. As Maxwell tells “Te Ao With Moana,” the findings indicate that the boat wasn’t carved from one big tree, but rather crafted from hundreds of pieces of carefully shaped timber.
“Before we started this project, the holy grail would have been to find some of the sail, or some of the twine that held things together, or some of the rope or the corking,” Maxwell says. “We found all of that. It’s completely blown our minds.”
The boat is likely a “Moriori ancestral waka,” as Indigenous rights activist Maui Solomon, chair of the Moriori Imi Settlement Trust, tells the Guardian. The Moriori people were the first settlers of the Chatham Islands, which they reached after sailing east from mainland New Zealand around 1500. Solomon notes that the waka’s design aligns with records of Moriori oral history, and its notches and long handles resemble smaller traditional Moriori boats.
Experts haven’t yet determined the waka’s age. So far, they know that at least three of the pieces of timber come from New Zealand trees, as Vincent tells Radio New Zealand. Conservator Sara Gainsford and her team have set up a laboratory near the dig site, where they’ve been working to preserve all of the pieces. According to a statement, Maxwell and Gainsford are currently preparing a report on their findings.
“Normally, when waka have been found—whether it’s elsewhere in Polynesia or in Aotearoa [the Maori name for New Zealand]—you find very small parts of them. With this one, we have hundreds of components,” Maxwell tells the Guardian. “It’s going to help us learn so much more about Polynesian waka technology.”
