Tomako or tomoko is a large war canoe from the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

. The name "tomako" is used in New Georgia in the Roviana language. It is also known as magoru in Marovo, niabara in Vella Lavella, mon in Bougainville, ora in Makira, and iola or ola in

Malaita Malaita is the primary island of Malaita Province in Solomon Islands. Malaita is the most populous island of the Solomon Islands, with a population of 161,832 as of 2021, or more than a third of the entire national population. It is also the se ...

and

Ulawa Ulawa Island is an island in Solomon Islands. It is located near Malaita Island and belongs to Makira Ulawa Province. The island has an area of . A hilly island, its highest point is above sea level. Average temperatures are around 27 ° ...

. Tomako were narrow and usually between in length. They did not possess

outriggers An outrigger is a projecting structure on a boat, with specific meaning depending on types of vessel. Outriggers may also refer to legs on a wheeled vehicle that are folded out when it needs stabilization, for example on a crane that lifts ...

or sails and were propelled solely by paddling. They were built by fitting planks edge-to-edge which are then "sewn" together and caulked with a paste made from the nut of the tree ''

Parinarium laurinum ''Atuna'' is a genus of plants in the family Chrysobalanaceae described as a genus in 1838.Prance, G. T. & F. White. 1988. The genera of Chrysobalanaceae: a study in practical and theoretical taxonomy and its relevance to evolutionary biology. ...

''. They could carry 30 to 50 warriors, and were used in raiding expeditions for slaves or for headhunting. They were characteristically crescent-shaped, with sharply upturned prows and sterns (reaching up to high) that were decorated with fringes of

cowrie shell Cowrie or cowry () is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries. The term ''porcelain'' derives from the old Italian term for the cowrie shell (''porcellana'') du ...

s, nautilus shells, and mother-of-pearl, as well as intricate carvings (Roviana: ''nguzunguzu''; Marovo: ''toto isu''). These carvings are usually of spirit animals or warriors like the ''kesoko'' (a bird or sea spirit) and Tiolo (a warrior deity). The body is commonly blackened to contrast with the decorations. Tomako usually took 2 to 3 years to build using traditional stone and shell adzes. They were kept in sacred houses known as ''paele'', which also housed human heads taken during battle. Tomako is similar to the lisi, another common boat type in the Solomon Islands which also lacks outriggers, but differs in that the topmost strakes of the lisi have a gap in the middle. It also resembles the

orembai Orembai or Arombai is a type of plank boat from the Maluku Islands of Eastern Indonesia. It is mainly used for fishing and transport. This vessel is used as far as Batavia, where in the 17th century it became popular to go out "''orembaaien''" on a ...

of the

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located eas ...

, except the latter usually has a sail. The last canoes used for war were confiscated by the British colonial government in the Solomon Islands during the early 1900s to stop headhunting raids. It was eventually bought by a private German collector. However, new canoes were built at around 1910–1912. They were used for canoe-racing, encouraged by the colonial government to preserve the traditional boat-building practices. In the 11th

Festival of Pacific Arts The Festival of Pacific Arts, Pacific Arts Festival, or FESTPAC is a traveling festival hosted every four years, in the same year as the Summer Olympics, by a different country in Oceania ( map). It was conceived by the Pacific Community (former ...

in 2012 hosted by the Solomon Islands, several Tomako were built and displayed.

Gallery

File:PSM V35 D501 Head hunting canoe and canoe house at rubiana.jpg, Woodcut illustration of a tomako stored in a paele (c. 1889) File:Tomako (Solomon Islands, 1918).jpg, An ornamented tomako (c. 1918) File:Head-hunting canoe from Ysabel (Canoes of the British Solomon Islands, 1909).jpg, A tomako from

Santa Isabel Island Santa Isabel Island (also known as Isabel, Ysabel and Mahaga) is the longest in Solomon Islands, the third largest in terms of surface area, and the largest in the group of islands in Isabel Province. Location and geographic data Choiseul lies t ...

(c. 1909)

References

{{Austronesian ships Austronesian ships

Gallery

See also

References