Waka (canoe) - Waka Ama (outrigger Canoes)

Waka Ama (outrigger Canoes)

Early European explorers saw Māori using waka ama (outrigger canoes). "Sydney Parkinson, an artist on Captain James Cook’s first voyage to New Zealand in 1769, and the German scientist Johann Reinhold Forster, who sailed with Cook in 1773, described waka fitted with outriggers (ama, amatiatia or korewa)". Already rare in Cook's time, waka ama had largely faded from memory by the early 19th century (Howe 2006:87). However, the term 'waka ama' occurs in old stories, such as the story of Māui published by in Grey in 1854 and in a few old waiata; Tregear also mentions the waka ama as 'a possession of the Maori', adding that 'It was beneath the outrigger of such a canoe that the famous Maui crushed his wife's brother Irawaru before turning him into a dog. Both the double canoe and that with the outrigger have entirely disappeared from among the Maoris, and it is doubtful if any native now alive has seen either of them in New Zealand' (Tregear 1904:115). The Māori words for the parts of the outrigger, such as 'ama' and 'kiato', recorded in the early years of European settlement, suggest that Māori outrigger canoes were similar in form to those known from central Polynesia.

In recent years, waka ama racing, introduced from Pasifika nations into New Zealand during the 1980s and 1990s, using high-tech canoes of Hawaiian or Tahitian design, and supported with the ingenious support of work schemes, has become an increasingly popular sport in New Zealand, often performed as part of larger festivals.