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Updated: May 1, 2025
To Lata is traced the introduction of the large double canoes united by a deck, and which were in use of old in Samoa. Seu i le vaa o Lata, or Seuilevaaolata, "steersman in the canoe of Lata," is a name not yet extinct in Samoa; but the person who bears such a sentential appellation seldom gets more than the first syllable.
Carefully and in a wide circle the vaa crept around to head back toward our port, and it was after sunset before we were in Teta's house in Puforatoai. The villagers met us with torches and incredulous aues and we walked up the road singing the song of the "Ai Dobbebelly Dobbebelly," which was known wherever a fisher for market dwelt in all Tahiti.
"Well, every thing being arranged for our voyage, we set sail in a large `Vaa Motu, or single canoe, furnished with a great outrigger, and manned by a crew of nine natives. Our cargo consisted of Barton's stock of goods for trading with the islanders, and a quantity of stained tappa, fine mats, shark's teeth, etcetera, which Rokoa had laid in for purposes of his own.
Tatini was adept in canoeing, and with a quartet of hoë we would have ordinarily sent the vaa spinning through the water; but we were nearing the southernmost extremity of the Presqu'île, and the wind and current from the northeast swept about the broken coast in a confusion of puffs and blasts, choppy waves and roaring breakers, and made our progress slow and hazardous.
Our canoe was twenty feet long, and with a very strong outrigger, but though all four of us paddled, Teta, the chief man of Puforatoai, in the stern, steering, the vaa labored heavily.
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