How it began
The drua was a double-hulled sailing canoe made in Fiji. The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa describes it as the largest and finest seagoing vessel designed and built by the peoples of Oceania before contact with Europeans. Building one was possible only for chiefs who could command highly skilled hereditary canoe builders, a class limited in numbers and location. No founding date is recorded in the sources; the tradition predates European arrival.
How it works
The hulls were made of carefully fitted planks built up on a keel and stitched together with coconut fiber cord. Joins were caulked with dry coconut husk and gum from the breadfruit tree. A drua has no fixed bow or stern, so it can sail in either direction. The sail was made of sections of hand-woven pandanus leaf matting, which kept a tear from spreading across the whole sail. Steering paddles were very large: one measured 33 feet long with a blade 21 inches wide.
How it spread
The same design was used beyond Fiji. Te Papa records that the Samoan equivalent was the 'alia and the Tongan equivalent was the kalia, vessels of the same design that could reach up to 100 feet in length. Construction also drew on many other specialists, including sail makers, rope makers and paddle makers, and was probably a heavy strain on the resources of a village or district.
What changed first
In the nineteenth century, large double-hulled canoes gave Fijians effective open-ocean transport and carried troops in wartime. An 1847 account reported at least 200 warriors aboard each canoe in the fleet of the chief Cakobau. Drua also carried freight: one took 12 head of cattle in its holds on a 120 mile trip from Natewa Bay in Vanua Levu to Levuka, and another carried a deck cargo of bagged maize from Tailevu to Suva.
Where it stands today
The skills survive through heritage projects. In 2018 and 2019 a drua named Ro Lida was built in Fiji as a commission meant to encourage the retention of canoe-building skills. Its builders and sail makers came from the islands of Ogea and Vulaga in the Lau region. They harvested trees on Ogea and finished the canoe with traditional tools, fiber lashings and shells, using no metal parts. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has exhibited it.
