The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North AmericaChapelle, Howard Irving
History
The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America
Chapelle, Howard Irving
Canoes and canoeing -- North America; Indians of North America -- Boats; Skin boats -- North America
The methods used by a paddler to right a capsized kayak, without aid
and while he was still in the cockpit, have aroused the interest of
many canoeists. It was used by the King Islanders, some of the Aleuts,
and the Greenlanders, who at times, it is said, would deliberately
capsize their kayak to avoid the blow of a heavy breaking sea, then
right it when the sea had passed. The Eskimo are reported to be
gradually losing this skill, but in late years European and American
kayakers have learned this method, called the "kayak roll," of
righting a decked canoe with paddler in place. It follows in general
the Greenland method. In the Appendix (p. 223) is an illustrated
description of the kayak roll, supplied by John Heath.
Traditionally, the weapons used by kayakers were darts and harpoons,
the bow not being employed, since wetting would damage the weapon.
Various forms were used, and many were thrown with the "throwing-stick"
to increase the range and force. An inflated bladder or skin was
often carried to buoy the harpoon line and tire the game. Bolas and
knives were also carried. All eastern kayaks appear to have been
propelled with the double-blade paddle, but folklore suggests that the
single-blade kayak paddle may have once been used. Greenland kayaks
have been reported as carrying a small square sail, but this was
actually a hunting screen, or camouflage, to hide the paddler and cause
the seal to mistake the canoe for a cake of ice. It was a 19th-century
addition, as was a fin attached to the kayak to counteract the effect
of the screen in a beam wind. Any effect it had as a sail in a kayak
was unintentional, of course: it was dismounted in strong winds or when
not required for hunting.
[Illustration: Figure 176
KORYAK KAYAK, drawn from damaged kayak in the American Museum of
Natural History, 1948.]
Shown above is the plan of an Asiatic Koryak kayak. This type, used
in the Sea of Okhotsk and on the Siberian coast of Bering Sea, is the
only distinctive Asiatic type; the Chukchi of the Siberian side of
Bering Strait uses a kayak that is on the same model as the one found
at Norton Sound, in Alaska. The Chukchi kayak differs only in the ends,
which are wholly functional and without the handgrips that distinguish
the Alaskan type. There is also a crude Chukchi river kayak, covered
with reindeer skin, but its design is not represented in an American
museum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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