CRAB CRAW SAILS AND FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME

I think I have seen a Lakatoi. A Lakatoi is a multihulled sailing raft powered by a Pacific crab clawed sails. Memory is difficult and you lose confidence in it, especially if you think you have seen something truly rare. False Memory Syndrome is not uncommon.

The one which is now vivid in my mind’s eye was sailing across the bay before the town of Port Moresby in Papua New Guiney. It was not one of the big Lakatois that sailed before the prevailing south east trade wind called the Laurabada from Hanuabada, the stilt village of the Motu people, westwards along the Papuan cost until they reached the villages near the Fly River estuary to trade clay pots for sago. These were great multi hulled rafts with two Pacific crab claw sails and many crewmen who formed a trading cooperative. The crews would stay a while, add more canoes to the raft and load up with dried sago. When the prevailing wind changed to the Lahara they ran their loaded Lakatois before it back to Hanuabada. Why did they do this? Because Hanuabada village, and nearby Port Moresby, lies in a rain shadow and sago palms and the big trees to make canoes will not grow there. There was a shortage of carbohydrate but the Hanuabada woman were skilled at making clay pots. There were plenty of sago palms and big trees to make canoes along the coast near the Fly river estuary complex. The Laurabada blew the pot laden Lakatois westwards and the Lahara blew them back again loaded with sago and bigger by a few canoes.  It is what anthropologists, who love the story, call the Hiri trade cycle.

My Lakatoi was just a small one which looked like a raft with a hut on it and the great crab claw sail rising above it. The raft was made of wooden canoes lashed together and the sail of coconut matting. They must have been a hell of a job to sail. Long ago the Hiri trade was stopped because of the number of lives lost trying to sail the great Lakatois heavily loaded with sago.

The one I saw was heading in the direction of the other stilted village to the east of Port Moresby called Koki village. There is a painting of Koki village that June bought in the Top Pub in Port Moresby hanging on the wall in my home now.