Maldivian maritime craft and the development of ethnic boat-building.

Ma Huan, the Chinese scribe who visited Maldives in 1414 with Admiral Cheng-Ho during his Fourth Expedition to the Indian Ocean, described the boatbuilding he saw in Maldives. He remarked as had earlier writers, that Maldivians did not use nails in the construction of their ships;

they bored holes and used ropes made of coconut husk to bind them the wooden planks together and also employed wooden wedges (Phillips 1885).

This description shows that the unique ship-building methods had not changed in the intervening years.

Researching the evolution of Maldivian maritime craft and the development of ethnic boat-building technology in the Maldives, Maizan Hassan Maniku felt that the standard shape of the Maldivian dhoani bore a marked resemblance to the shape of the reed bundle ships used by the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and the Indus Valley civilizations, and it could be deduced that this was the origin of the indigenous design of the Dhoani.

He thought that the Maldivian dhoani had even more in common with the Phoenician ships which were built from wooden planks, but retained the papyrus form of the older craft (Maniku 1998). When this information is examined in the light of existing oral tradition in Maldives linking the first settlers to a town in the Indus Valley civilization, it seems possible that such a connection may exist.

Maizan Hassan Maniku found no evidence of a change in the method of construction of the original Maldivian craft until the sixteenth century, when the Portuguese arrived in the Indian Ocean in their wooden galleons, named guraabu by Maldivians.

These were found by local boat-builders to be constructed using dowels to fasten the planks. Wooden planks were fastened together using treenails which ran transversely through the planks.

The hull was built first, and the ribs or frames built in afterwards. Maniku felt that this could have been the period when the Maldivian dhoani as we know it now, was developed in the way it is being built today (Maniku 1998).

The implication that dugout canoes were the origin of the Maldivian dhoani suggested by Clarence Maloney in his book, People of the Maldive Islands (p.153, 154), is difficult to believe, since the large trees needed to construct these canoes cannot be found in Maldives.

He seems to have based his assumption on the name dhoani, which he felt, came from the Tamil tondi, (something dug out). Maloney has also said that neither dugout canoes nor outriggers are known in Maldives now (Maloney 1980).

There is no reason to believe that they were ever there.

A Maldivian master boat-builder did not use diagrams or sophisticated instruments to turn out a perfect boat. He did it all, relying entirely on experience and observation.

In Maldives, there were certain islands where the boat builders were considered to be expert craftsmen, and such masters of the craft would be engaged to build boats for people of other islands too.

These boats were built of materials that were available in the islands. Different parts of the vessel were constructed of the kind of timber considered appropriate for that particular part, and its function in the finished boat.

The boatbuilding industry in the earlier centuries was self-sufficient because the timber and other materials used for boatbuilding were locally available.

In earlier days, square woven sails made of young screw pine leaves or that of the coconut palm were used even on vessels travelling on long journeys.

These square woven sails called fan riya, were in use until the mid-nineteenth century after which they were gradually replaced by sailcloth and lateen sails. Boats differed in their structure and design, depending on the purpose for which they were built.

There were boats built for travel between islands, boats built to travel between the atolls, and there were also vessels built for the specific purpose of trading and travel to foreign countries. Besides these there were smaller craft built for lighter work.

The following are some of the different types of boats built by Maldivians: Bokkura – Row boat Mas Odi – Square-sailed fishing craft Mas Dhoani – fishing vessel Ban’du Odi – Schooner Naalu Baththeli – Inter-island freighter Vadhu Dhoani – Troll boat Jaha Dhoani – Royal transfer boat All these were modifications of the same hull. (Maniku 1998).

The basic kind of boat used in the Maldives from early times is the Dhoani, which was used for fishing, trading and travel. Other vessels were mainly adaptations of this basic craft (Fig. 8). Foreign-going vessels were called furedhdhe odi by Maldivians; the word furedhdhe meaning “foreign”. Odi was the name given to a boat larger than a Dhoani and had two masts and a jib. It usually had a wooden cabin and could also carry passengers.

A larger ship is the type called a Baththeli, which was used to carry cargo to India and Sri Lanka (Maloney 1980). The largest craft used in Maldives was called a Nau, a lateen-rigged vessel that came into use around the late eighteenth century. Many of these large vessels were built in India.

A unique feature of the smaller Maldivian Dhoani is that it is designed to be steered with the foot. These smaller vessels that travelled between the islands and atolls carrying passengers and cargo were equipped with a long graceful tiller fitted on the rudder. The helmsman standing at the stern would steer the vessel with his foot, leaving his hands free for other work. At the time of their first contact with the Portuguese in 1503, Maldivians were using a type of craft known to people of the region as a gundra.

These were boats built of coconut wood with Hirudhu , Dhiggaa , Kaani , Kuredhi ( Iron wood) that grow in coastal areas of the Indian Ocean, probably the type called Odi that was frequently used for trading visits to the western coast of India. In this incident, four Maldivian Gundras loaded with coir ropes, cowries and fish, and a great store of silks, were seized by the Portuguese. Maldivian seafaring and shipbuilding continued even during the years of the Portuguese occupation.