Outrigger Canoe - History

History

Outrigger canoes were originally developed by the Austronesian speaking peoples of the islands of Southeast Asia for sea travel, and were used to transport these peoples both eastward to Polynesia and New Zealand and westward across the Indian Ocean as far as Madagascar during the Austronesian migration period. Even today, it is mostly among the Austronesian groups (Filipino, Malay, Micronesian, Melanesian and Polynesian peoples) that outrigger canoes are used.

Outrigger fishing canoes are also used among certain non-Austronesian groups, like the Sinhala in Sri Lanka, where they are known as oruwa, as well as among some people groups in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The ethnological significance of this spread has been studied by James Hornell.

When Magellan's ships first encountered the Chamorros of the Mariana Islands in 1521, Antonio Pigafetta recorded that the Chamorros' sailboats far surpassed Magellan's in speed and maneuverability.

The Polynesian Voyaging Society has two double-hull sailing canoes, Hōkūleʻa and Hawaiʻiloa, and sails them between various islands in the Pacific using traditional Polynesian navigation methods without instruments.

The technology has persisted into the modern age. Outrigger canoes can be quite large fishing or transport vessels, and in the Philippines, outrigger canoes (called bangka, parao or balanghai) are often fitted with petrol engines. The links between seafaring and outrigger canoes in the Philippines extend through to political life, in which the smallest political unit in the country still called Barangay after the historical Balangai outrigger proas used in the original migrations of the first Austronesian peoples across the archipelago and beyond.