Customer Reviews

Vaka: Saga of a Polynesian canoe

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A ripping read from beginning to end and I believe after contacting the author that the book is in the process of reprint.

Finally, a book in a modern voice that takes you inside the Polynesian culture! I've read plenty of antiquities and stories gathered by missionaries, anthropologists, academics, travel writers and the like. Their work always seemed flat and dry, like examining flowers and insects behind glass cases. Then along came Tom Davis, former Prime Minister of the Cook Islands and a thoroughly modern Ariki. Suddenly I found myself immersed in the world of his ancestors. There was nothing understated or humble about this journey. The voyaging canoes themselves were immense (over 50 meters long), fast (routinely hitting 18 knots), and longer lived than any other vehicle I know of. Vaka, the canoe for which the book is named, links the ambitions, intrigues, violent passions and lusty romances of twelve generations of indelible characters over thousands of km of ocean and 300 years of history.

Ancient Polynesia was the world's most advanced maritime civilization for thousands of years, despite its lack of writing and metal. I've always wanted to understand it from the inside, and Vaka is the only book I've read that actually delivered.