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In 1930 photographer Edward Curtis concluded his monumental 20-volume
study "The North American Indian" with his research on the
Alaskan Eskimos. He wrote that "The kaiak (kaiyuh) is the most
important craft of many of the Alaskan Eskimo, for by means of it the
livelihood of the people is chiefly obtained" (p.l2).
The kayak was the cornerstone
of Eskimo society in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta area in a number of ways. Not
only was it the means by which certain biological needs of the people were
satisfied, it also was the basis among men for obtaining wealth and women.
Anthropologist Margaret Lantis noted that wealth among the Nunivak Island
Eskimo (another Bering Sea group of Eskimo) was a consequent of giving away
goods which depended on being a good hunter which in turn depended on having
a kayak and being a good kayaker (1946:158). A man could not get a wife if he
were unable to support her and without a kayak, support was impossible.
The use of the traditional
skin-covered kayak as a major subsistence tool in the Yukon/Kuskokwim delta
area of Alaska s Bering Sea has declined almost to extinction. As the last
kayak-using community of any size in this area, Hooper Bay, Alaska provided a
recent, last live examination of some of the subsistence techniques that
depended on the kayak. Through interviews, a reading of historical documents
and commissioning the construction of a full-size kayak for the National
Museums of Canada, I hoped to understand other features of this
kayak-dependant culture as they existed in the past.
In this article I will provide
some historical perspective for the Bering Sea kayak and then compare it to
current construction and use practices. As Arctic Ethnologist for the
National Museum of Man in Ottawa, I first traveled to Hooper Bay in October
1976. This community, which shows archaeological evidence of over 600 years
of continuous occupation, is similar in many respects to the communities
studied by Curtis and Lantis on nearby Nunivak Island. Hooper Bay had a
different dialect and slightly less complex ritual life than that of the
Nunivak Island, but the kayak complex as a whole was generally similar for
all coastal Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Eskimo.
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Arctic Kayak Design
When looking at the design features of Arctic kayaks, two general types
are noted; a) those designed for inland use in spearing caribou as they
cross lakes and rivers, and; b) ones used for pursuing marine mammals in
the sea. Of these latter sea-going kayaks, a number of design constraints
are inherent. The vessel must be capable of pursuing sea mammals either
through speed or stealth. Few are designed for speed, but all can be
maneuvered silently. The kayak must be able to return with any game
captured and this is done variously through towing, by carrying the
un-butchered animal on the deck or by stowing the cut-up carcass inside the
vessel as in the Bering See example under discussion.
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Seaworthiness
Another design constraint is that of seaworthiness. This was solved in the
Bering Sea area by building a broad and deep hull -- one with rounded
bilges and a flattened, but not flat, bottom. A sharply ridged deck not
only expanded the interior, it also helped to shed waves. The beam of
around 30" gave the kayak excellent stability and, combined with a
sealable waterproof gut-skin parka and one or two recovery techniques,
made it very seaworthy. The wide cockpit facilitated storage of game and
also allowed two people to ride back to back with ease. Margaret Lantis
recorded a story in which the passenger acted as a bow-and-arrow-equipped
"tail-gunner" during a war raid (1946:306).
The 30" beam makes this
kayak the widest in the Arctic while the average length of just over fifteen
feet makes it almost the shortest of Eskimo kayaks. A Hooper Bay informant
said that this length kayak handled better in heavy seas than a longer
vessel.
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Kayak Accessories
A small sled was an important kayak accessory and was used to haul the kayak
to the floe edge and over ice floes. When not in use, it was stowed on the
after deck. The foredeck carried extra paddles, gaffs, and a great variety
of specialized spears, darts and harpoons for use against different seals
and waterfowl.
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Gutskin Parkas
The hunter wore a gutskin parka cut full to allow the parka to be sealed
with a tie around the cockpit coaming. Sealskin formed the underarm part of
the parka to prevent chafe due to constant rubbing on the cockpit coaming
while paddling. The parka was sealed tight around the face with a drawstring
and fishskin mitts with sealskin palms had their long cuffs tied tight over
the parka sleeves. Thus equipped, a paddler could capsize and remain dry
except for his face. The ability to right oneself after a capsize was
reported for this area. Hooper Bay informants howevewr, could not remember
this as being possible or important.
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Seats, Canteens &
Buoyancy Bags
Bearded seal stomachs with a fine mesh grass covering were carried inside as
a type of canteen. In rough seas these could be emptied, inflated with air,
and shoved in the kayak ends to act as extra buoyancy chambers should the
kayak fill with water. Also inside the kayak was a wooden slat seat on top
of a woven grass mat. Both helped keep dirt from working down between
stringers and cover where it could chafe through. Another grass mat was
carried inside to use as a windbreak when butchering game on an ice floe. It
could also be used as a sail when two kayaks were tied together. A kayak
sled was put crosswise over the foredecks and the mat secured to it in
front.
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Paddle Types
Because the kayaks of this area became so broad and deep, use of the
double-bladed paddle was difficult and consequently it was only used for
speed -- often from a kneeling position. Kneeling and occasionally standing
were paddling positions used with the single-bladed paddle as well. A short
paddle was used to scull the kayak to within harpooning distance of sea
mammals. It could be noiselessly operated with one hand on the side away
from a dozing animal with a weapon held at the ready in the other.
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Other Traditional Uses of
the Kayak
Other than its use as a sea mammal hunting tool, the kayak was used for
spearing waterfowl, fishing, racing, gathering firewood, occasional clamming
by the women, transporting goods and ferrying people across bays, streams
and rivers. One informant saw six people in a kayak crossing a stream -two
in the cockpit sitting back to back, one prone in the forward hull, one
prone in the after hull and one each prone on forward and after decks.
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Traditional Construction
& Customs
Although kayak skin covers seldom lasted more than a season, the frame was
good for many years if kept in proper repair. New kayaks were built
piecemeal during late winter or early fall. Curtis described the process in
detail as he saw and heard it in 1927.
"Their construction takes place with ceremony in the men's house, usually
under the supervision of some old man well skilled in boat-making. The men
measure and cut each individual part of the wooden frame according to a
prescribed system based on the length of various members of the body or a
combination of such members. Thus each man's kaiak is built according to
the specifications of his own body and hence is peculiarly fitted to his
use.
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After each part is meticulously
made according to measurement, the frame is put together with lashings of
rawhide. The workmanship must of necessity be fine, because no cutting with
edged tools may be done once the parts are finished and are being joined.
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The night after the lashing
of the kaiak frames is completed, the women gather to cut sealskins to size
for the coverings, three thick and heavy hair-seal skins for the bottoms and
sides, and two spotted-seal skins for the lighter decking. As they work, the
women wear waterproof parkas, which are believed to prevent any evil
influence from entering or afflicting the new kaiaks. After the cutting is
finished, the women prepare food for the men.
The following day, while the
women, dressed as before, are sewing together the skins, the kaiak owners sit
before the bows of the completed frames and sing their hunting songs in an
almost inaudible tone, since these songs are both sacred and secret. Kaiak
owners often have their sons beside them to learn these chants, which descend
from father to son. After the singing, when the hides are nearly sewn, each
wife brings to her husband a new wooden dish of fish or berries. Stripped to
the waist, he throws a portion of the food to the floor as an offering, and
prays for good luck during the coming hunting season. He then gives the food
to the oldest man present (often the one who has supervised the kaiak-making),
who distributes it to all the men at hand. The owner then walks once about
the kaiak frame, pretending to carry a lighted lamp. Next he motions as if to
shove a lamp underneath the bows, that seal may see and approach his kaiak as
he hunts.
As the last flap, on the
after-deck, is sewn, after the frame is shoved into the completed covering,
the now naked owner, accompanied by all the men present, sings his childbirth
song to his new kaiak. The owner washes the cover with urine to remove any
oil that may adhere to the surface, and rinses it in salt water. He then
hauls his craft through the smoke-hole of the house and rests it in the snow,
which will absorb dampness from its surface. Later he puts the kaiak on its
rack and drapes over it his talismans, strung on belts, which are later to be
kept in the kaiak. Here it remains a day and a night. Then at night he
carries the craft to the ice where he sings his hunting songs, sacred only to
him and to his family. Outside in the freezing weather the skin coverings
bleach white. As soon as each new kaiak is finished, the owner performs his
ceremony.
On returning to the men's
house, the owner dresses in new parka and boots, and, grasping a bunch of
long grass fibres, makes motions of sweeping toward the entrance. By this
action he brushes outside any evil influence or contamination from his kaiak,
the covering which has been made by women (1930:12,13,15). "
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Dwindling Use of the Kayak
In her 1940 trip to Hooper Bay, Margaret Lantis reported sixty-three kayaks
in a population of 360 people (1946:164). Today (1978), with over twice that
population, the number of useable kayaks has dwindled to less than a dozen
and all of these appear to have been made ten to twenty years ago.
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Kayak Construction in 1976
When I first arrived in Hooper Bay in 1976, I was fortunate to find
sixty-nine year old Dick Bunyan who was a skilled kayakmaker with over
twenty kayaks and two umiaks (open skin boats) to his credit. He agreed to
construct a kayak frame for the National Museums of Canada from driftwood
using intermediate technology consisting of a few modern hand tools plus
steelbladed traditional items such as an adze and curved carving knife. I
arrived in Hooper Bay on a Friday and the next day Dick started workinq on
the kayak.
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Making Curved Deck Beams
He selected a large stump from a pile he had gathered in back of his house
and, using an axe and wooden wedges, split it into pieces that would be
suitable for the curved deck beams of the kayak. He explained through an
interpreter that maximum strength was obtained by having wood with a grain
that was already curved the way the finished piece would be. I too, set
immediately to work filming, photographing, measuring and recording all
relevant details of the construction and continued this routine every day
for the next month until the frame was completed.
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Kayak Construction Tools
Dick Bunyan's adze was made from an old hatchet blade and with it he could
shape a piece of wood to look as though it had been smoothed with a plane.
No sandpaper was ever used. The curved carving knife, made from a muskrat
trap spring, was the perfect tool to hollow out all concave surfaces.
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Anthropometric Measurements
Dick's only measuring device was a 75 cm-long stick that was used to
transfer measurements first determined anthropometrically. For example, the
diameter of the hole in the bow is equal to the width of the closed fist
with the thumb outstretched; the diameter of the cockpit coaming is equal to
the distance from the armpit to the first joints of the fingers that grip
the coaming. All parts of the kayak were similarly measured. Each community
had its own standard set of anthropometric measurements which accounted for
great intra-community uniformity as most of the men were of the same general
build.
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Prefabrication of Parts
After the final shaping of the deck beams, Dick carved out the upper bow
block and the stern handhold, then attached them to their associated deck
stringers with notched scarf joints. The deck stringers were made from
pieces split out of a large driftwood log. The splitting was done using
small hardwood wedges carved from a broken hickory axe handle. The wedges
were inserted first in the end grain of the log along the plane of the
growth rings. As the split started down the log, more wedges were inserted
and pounded home until a whole section was split off. The outer ring of last
new growth on the log was initially split off and discarded because of
insufficient strength.
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Gunwales
The gunwales, major strength members in all kayaks, were fashioned from one
driftwood log that Dick first squared up with a hatchet and adze and then
halved by sawing with a portable circular saw. The saw-cut sides became the
outer sides of the gunwales in the finished product.
The general method of work
was to first split out pieces from the driftwood log or stump, then
rough-shape with a hatchet, and final-shape with the adze and curved carving
knife. In this fashion Dick prefabricated all 57 pieces of the kayak. The
rough work was done outside while the carving knife work was done indoors.
Dick did not use a workbench. Indoors he sat on a small wooden box. All wood
scraps and shavings were recycled in his wood stove.
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Assembly
In a little over three weeks the parts were complete and ready for
pre-assembly trimming, painting and bending. The gunwales were joined at the
ends and spread apart in the middle to check for even bending. One gunwale,
judged less springy than the other was planed down a bit on the outboard
side, rechecked and pronounced finished. The ribs were bent cold by clamping
the teeth down on them and bending by hand, tying the ends together with a
nylon cord that was later used as the rib/stringer tie.
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Cockpit Coaming
At this point Dick enlisted the aid of several neighbors. Aloysius Hale
formed the outer coaming lip into a circle by spot heating it with hot
water, bending it with his hands and tightening up a line connecting the
ends. I painted the gunwales, ribs and stringers while another neighbor cut
mortises into the gunwales for the deck beams and ribs. Dick supervised
closely.
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Frame Painting
The paint that I used was a powdered red ocher-color rock traded from Nelson
Island. The powder was mixed with a little water and rubbed on the wood with
a cloth. I could discover no functional reason for the use of this paint.
Dick told me: "We've always done it this way."
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Fitting Deck Beams to
Gunwales
When all was ready the deck beams were fitted into the gunwales, the gunwale
end bolted together and the bow and stern pieces added along with the deck
stringers. While this was all very straightforward, the next step in the
assembly was rather critical.
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Setting Reverse Sheer
Bering Sea kayaks have a slight reverse sheer achieved in the following
manner. The gunwale/deck beam/deck stringer assembly was placed upside down
supported by two boxes. The keelson pieces, attached to their respective
lower bow and stern blocks, next fitted into place. As they were
prefabricated extra long, they overlapped amidships. By trimming them
slightly short and joining them with a notched scarf joint, the ends of the
kayak were put in tension resulting in the gunwales bending upwards
(remember the frame is upside down) causing reverse sheer to form.
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Rib/Stringer Assembly
The keelson was then blocked and temporarily tied to prevent any rocker from
forming. The first rib was fitted in amidships and the others worked in
toward each end. Next the stringers were fitted to length and held in place
with more temporary ties. A length of twine was used for the rib/stringer
tie which runs athwartships from gunwale to gunwale. Following other
trimming and special lashings, the framework was turned rightside up. The
cockpit coaming was lashed temporarily in place while the gunwale-to-coaming
stanchions were fitted. With the addition of some touchup paint and
trimming, the kayak was finished, exactly one month from when it was
started.
Since I wanted the frame
left uncovered to display its structure, my work of recording the
construction was also complete. On the following field trips to Hooper Bay I
concentrated research on the current use of kayaks. In many respects I was 40
years too late.
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Kayak Use in 1976
Locally made flatbottom skiffs powered by one and sometimes two outboard
motors became common after the 1940s and the kayak lost some of its
functions. The skiff took the place of the umiak and usurped the kayak s
seal hunting functions during open water season. Changes in kayak
construction included the substitution of canvas for sealskin in covering
the frame. Clenched nails at the rib/stringer junctures replaced traditional
lashings. Except for uncompromising craftsmen such as Dick Bunyan, the
standards of workmanship have drastically declined.
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Use As a Tender to Skiffs
Today the kayak is infrequently used for winter and early spring seal
hunting when the skiff cannot easily maneuver among the ice. The kayak has
become a tender to the skiff for other activities.
I accompanied Aloysius Hale
by skiff to a section of Hooper Bay where nets were set to catch whitefish.
The kayak was carried inside the skiff until we reached the fishing grounds
where it was put in the water carrying a gill net stored on the foredeck. The
kayak was paddled to a nearby spot in the shallows and the net set by driving
two end poles into the surf bottom. Aloysius returned to the skiff and came
on board leaving the kayak in the water. He scanned the area for seals for
about twenty minutes and then returned to the net by kayak to check for fish.
A number of other fishermen in the area were following the same procedure
until a lone seal was sighted sending the skiffs in pursuit at top speed.
They surrounded the seal and took pot shots every time it surfaced. When it
came up for air in a distant location all skiffs raced away to again surround
the animal. Eventually the seal was killed and the excitement over, everyone
returned the less-exciting work of tending whitefish nets. Aloysius caught no
fish that day.
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Floe-edge Seal Hunting
One spring I again went with Aloysius Hale -- this time to the floe-edge by
snowmobile, pulling a sled with a kayak behind on a sled of its own.
Aloysius hauled the sled right to the water s edge and arranged it, his
paddle, and boat hook for a quick launch into the water. He settled back
against some rafted ice and scanned the area for seals with his
scope-equipped rifle ready for use. Unfortunately we saw no seals, however,
had Aloysius shot one from shore he would have launched kayak and rapidly
paddled out to retrieve it before it sank.
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Tomcod Fishing
Aloysius showed me another current use of the kayak. Traveling again by
skiff with the kayak on board we motored up a nearby slough (pronounced
slew) little more than 30 to 40 wide. Offloading the kayak which held a net
and other equipment, Aloysius paddled a short distance upstream where he
drove two poles into the muddy slough bottom. The net was tied between them.
Paddling a hundred yards or so upstream Aloysius slowly paddled back towards
the net, all the time slapping the water with his single-bladed paddle to
drive the fish (tomcod) downstream into the net. When he reached the net he
quickly pulled up the two poles and brought them together to close the net.
The successful drive yielded a gunny sack full of fish that were dried for
eating later in the winter.
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Conclusions
Other than in the above limited uses, the kayak has ceased to function in
any viable fashion. Many of the taboos and ceremonies surrounding the kayak
complex were eliminated by the introduction of Christianity and most of its
functions were supplanted by the motorized skiff. With the decline of the
men's house, the ready sources of knowledge and help for kayak building
became problematic too. The final reason for the decline of the kayak is
that its building is very labor intensive and few people are willing or able
to devote that much time when they can purchase or build a substitute or get
along without.
Hooper Bay was the last
large Eskimo community in all North America to still use the kayak for
traditional purposes. While I very much lament the demise of traditional
kayak construction and use, I am heartened by the current interest shown in
sea kayaking. I hope that we may be intelligent enough to take advantage of
the 2,000+ years of kayak development and discover in replicas the joys of
messing about in this most perfect of boats. There is no need to reinvent the
wheel.
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References Cited
Curtis, Edward S.
1930 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN.
Volume 20.
Nunivak, King Island, Little Diomede Island, Cape
Prince
of Wales, Kotzebue. Norwood: The Plimpton Press.
Lantis, Margaret
1946 THE SOCIAL CULTURE OF THE NUNIVAK ESKIMO.
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 35(3):153-323.
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