This is a very rare model of a Yami (or Tao) people canoe from Orchid Island, Taiwan

The canoe features traditional red, white, and black geometric patterns. The circular motifs are known as mata no tatara, or “eyes of the canoe”

Forward section of the Yami (Tao) canoe model

This is an extremely beautiful, 36 inches long, carved wooden canoe hull or “Wuramon” from the Asmat people of West Papua, Indonesia.

The hull is decorated with painted carvings and used as an ancestral container. This item dates from the early 20th century.

A c. 80 year old hull of a Samoan canoe model decorated with finely carved geometrical patterns.

Model of a traditional Sri Lanka fishing canoe

A canoe model of WALOMO. The canoes of Walomo are traditional outrigger fishing vessels from Walomo village, located on the northwest coast of PNG.

The custom of carving incised designs of fishes, birds and other creatures onto the hull and splashboard of canoes belongs to the various villages and island settlements in Jayapura Bay. This area has its own distinctive style, characterized by the elaborately carved S-shaped prow ornament representing a combination of birds and fishes. Hornell wrote” No two hulls are ornamented alike”. Canoes of Walomo by Hermone Frankel.

The jewel of my canoe collection, an elaborately carved Maori Waka Taua . Long by 34 inches , the tau-ihu as well as the tau-rapa are extremely finely carved. Rich carvings all along the washstrakes , executed in characteristically Maori bas-relief would suggest that this model was built by a tohunga tarai waka.