Re: Amerindian navigators and Eurocentrism in scholarship

[gans@panix.com (Paul J. Gans)]

Hugh Gibbons (hgibbons@spamproof.stic.net) wrote:

[other material on coracles deleted]

>As I said, they were round.  It's different than most boats in that
>it's not long and relatively narrow.  I don't know why the made them
>that way, but they did.  They wouldn't be very easy to steer or move
>in the water, but maybe not as bad as a rectangular raft.  I was just
>pointing out that early Amerindians weren't the only people to ever 
>take to sea in boats that were not like typical modern ones.

Someone in an earlier post said that coracles were used
primarily for riverine work.  That would explain the
shape, which is not so important in such situations.
It is likely that ease and cheapness of construction
would be the dominant factors.

For example, rafts were in use on the Mississippi far
into the 19th century, but folks did not venture out
into the Gulf of Mexico in them.

   ------ Paul J. Gans  [gans@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]