IDNO

N.129752.HNL

Description

View of outrigger canoes in front of a small building on the beach in Nossi Be in 1926. [FC 24/02/2016]

Place

E Africa; Madagascar; Nosy Be [Nossi-bé]

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Hornell, James

Collector / Expedition

Hornell, James

Date

1926

Collection Name

Hornell Collection

Source

Hornell, Charlotte (Mrs)

Format

Film Negative Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.129703.HNL - P.129945.HNL were found unaccessioned in Drawer C.44.21 of the Photo Store, in a cardboard box, now numbered C703/.

N.129749.HNL - N.129752.HNL were found in a brown envelope, now numbered C703/4.

Context: James Hornell writes in "The Common Origin of the Outrigger Canoes of Madagascar and East Africa." (Sept., 1920) Man Vol. 20; "No outrigger canoes are found on the East Coast of Madagascar, where plank- built boats are in general use; it is chiefly among the Sakalava of the West Coast that the outrigger survives. These outriggers are generally single or pseudo- double; true double outriggers, according to Monsieur G. Grandidier, to whom I am indebted for many of my facts, are found at the present day only at Nossi Voalavo at the mouth of the Sambao, high up on the west coast, and again in the south, in the neighbourhood of Cap Ste. Marie... The hull is an exceedingly roughly-hewn dugout; either the builders had little skill or grudged the time and labour necessary to shape it to the graceful form seen else-where on the Madagascar coastline. The rude outlines of the tree trunlk remain and the ends are roughly truncate and clumsy, without attempt to form a sharp cut-water. The upper edge of the sides is irregular, filled up where necessary by a rough gunwale, pegged on. The two booms are slender poles projecting equally on each side ; they connect with a cylindrical boom on either side by means of two flat peg- stanchions as shown in the figure." (134-5)