The Andamanese hollowed out their canoes with shell adzes, without the aid of fire, but they chose soft-hearted wood such as Sterculia, and caulked the ends with beeswax (nowadays they nail up the end with a piece of tin). Some of the finest dug-out canoes are made by the coast tribes of British Columbia. The only tools used in pre-trading days were stone axes, hammers and chisels, and the wood was the native "cedar." To fell the tree, two circular and parallel incisions are made in the trunk, nine or ten inches apart, and the wood is pried or pecked out piece by piece ; when it is felled, the length for the canoe is cut off in the same way. It is hollowed out with fire and adze, and roughly shaped. Next fires of smokeless embers are lit near by but not near enough to scorch, and the inside is filled with water brought to a boil with heated stones. This plims and softens the fibre of the wood and allows of the expanding and stretching of the sides, which are fixed in posi tion to the desired width by thwarts pegged in place. Some of the canoes are from 3o to 5oft. long, and will carry 6o .to ioo people.
The finest and most varied boats are found among the islands of Polynesia. There are relics of primitive types, rafts of poles lashed together, or bundles of bulrushes, and the Moriori of Chatham island used to venture out to sea, 6o of them at a time, on a raft of flax flower stems (Phormiurn tenax) floating on sea kelp blad ders. But beautifully balanced dug-out canoes with or without
outriggers and carvel-built plank boats ingeniously lashed together with cord are universal, and in these the long voyages of hundreds of miles from island to island are undertaken. The most impos ing of the double canoes were those of he Society islands, the lightest those from Hawaii, and the strongest those of New Zea land. The plank-built canoes were usually made of bread-fruit tree wood (Artocarpus incisa) very carefully fitted together.
The whole process of boat-building, from the felling of the trees to the launching of the boat is generally safeguarded by feasts, charms, prayers and varied ceremonies to ensure good luck. Hu man victims as sacrifices are characteristic both of Oceania and of parts of Africa. Charms are often attached to boats, especially to assist in fishing or in war. An eye painted or incised in the bows, which in Egypt represented the eye of Osiris, is seen round the Mediterranean, off the coasts of India and China, and also North America, still occasionally retaining a magical significance.