The dalca or piragua is a type of

canoe A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle. In British English, the ter ...

employed by the Chonos, a nomadic indigenous people of southern Chile, and

Huilliche The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco subgroup, the north ha ...

people living in Chiloé archipelago. It was a light boat and ideal for navigating local waterways, including between islands of the

Chiloé Archipelago The Chiloé Archipelago ( es, Archipiélago de Chiloé, , ) is a group of islands lying off the coast of Chile, in the Los Lagos Region. It is separated from mainland Chile by the Chacao Channel in the north, the Sea of Chiloé in the east and t ...

, through the

Chacao Channel The Chacao Channel ( es, Canal de Chacao) is located in Los Lagos Region, Chile and separates Chiloé Island from mainland Chile. The channel was created during the Quaternary glaciations by successive glaciers that flowed down from the Andes ...

to mainland Chile, and along the coast of the Gulf of Penas. Spanish chronicles called it best-suited for those waters, far superior to ships of the ''conquistadore''s. The dalca was essential for many activities in

including the logging of alerce wood, the Circular Mission system, and the various expeditions to

Nahuel Huapi Lake Nahuel Huapi Lake ( es, Lago Nahuel Huapí) is a lake in the lake region of northern Patagonia between the provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén, in Argentina. The tourist center of Bariloche is on the southern shore of the lake. The June 2 ...

and the channels of Patagonia. By 1886 dalcas had been replaced by other boat types and were not longer in use in Chiloé. According to archaeologist José Miguel Ramírez, only full non-reconstructed dalcas remaining were collected by Swedish explorer

Carl Skottsberg Carl Johan Fredrik Skottsberg (1 December 1880 – 14 June 1963) was a Swedish botanist and explorer of Antarctica. Life Skottsberg was born in Karlshamn on 1 December 1880 the son of Carl Adolf Skottsberg a schoolmaster and his wife, Maria L ...

and are at the Museum of Ethnography,

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

and the

Museum of World Culture The National Museum of World Culture ( sv, Världskulturmuseet) opened in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2004. It is a part of the public authority Swedish National Museums of World Cultures and builds on the collections of the former Göteborgs Etnog ...

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

See also

References

Further reading