Island Conservation Society is not only involved with nature conservation. We are also concerned with the preservation of the history and culture of Seychelles; particularly that of the outer islands. Although many of these islands were inhabited within living memory, that memory is rapidly fading. Life on the outer islands of Seychelles evolved into something quite unique in the world and the people who lived there, working and surviving, were a unique breed. Their kind is almost unknown in Seychelles today, forged as they were by the hardships they endured, and the courage and ingenuity with which they faced these difficulties.
The people of the outer islands were stranded on these tiny scraps of land for months on end without supplies, without news, without means of evacuation. The only thing they could depend upon was their own inner resource. If we find it difficult to imagine how they lived this life, our children may find it impossible. It is for this reason that ICS is committed to preserving what remains of the history of the islands, in whatever form it may take: the buildings, the folklore, the pirogues, the stories and the eyewitness accounts of those who lived it.
Several islands still have their abandoned settlements: the copra shed, the kalorifer, the oil press, the lock up and makeshift hospital. Just imagine the men being hoisted up in baskets onto the bleak cliffs of St Pierre to collect guano, or Madagascan princesses shipwrecked en route to exile and buried beneath a line of casuarina trees by their devoted servants; of sokwe dancers leading Christmas celebrations and men who went out to sea in tiny boats to fish and never came home, of Moorish palaces built by dreamers and eventually abandoned to the ravages of wind and salt. Think of the children who died of fever when there was no medical help but the knowledge of the power of herbs and the skill of the manager with a scalpel when called upon to perform an emergency operation. Their stories must be remembered.
We must not lose this precious heritage, and ICS aims to play a leading role in both their preservation and interpretation, so that future generations will better understand the way of life of the ilois, before it is lost forever.
In 2006-07, plans to restore one of the finest examples of an island plantation house; the Lodge on Aride Island. This is one of the few surviving examples of the French Creole colonial architecture of Seychelles and the skills used by the early inhabitants to adapt their native materials and technologies and produce buildings best suited to the local climatic conditions. It is an important part of the cultural heritage of Seychelles.
The date of construction of the Aride Plantation Lodge is not known with certainty. Historical comparisons, for example, to the Dauban Lodge on Silhouette and the Presidential house on La Digue, suggest it was built in the early twentieth century. In 1883 Aride was visited by Marianne North, who produced a famous painting of a takamaka tree described as “the only shade in Ile Aride”. This shows the location of the lodge, but with a few small houses and so must pre-date its construction.
The timber structure, which remains intact, is an excellent example of local carpentry techniques. The joints are an interesting feature because they not only show both French and English influence in the carpentry, but they also demonstrate a transfer of ship construction technology to house building. The walls are covered in horizontal weather-board cladding, where the boards have been carefully quartered and given a tapered edge to provide a smooth surface. The post and truss (horizontal structural) timber construction has been cut from the trunk of the tree. Due to the fact that the main structure of building has not suffered major alterations, the special air cooling system is still intact, which gives added architectural and historic importance to the house.
ICS has recently restored one of the last wooden pirogues to be used on Aride Island. The Seychelles pirogue is a variation on a theme of the dug out canoe used widely all over the world. River canoes used in Africa and around the coast of Madagascar would have been copied by early settlers in Seychelles and particularly modified for local conditions over the years. Similar dug out canoes in use in the West Indies at the same period were called 'piragua', which is probably the origin of the name. It may even have been pirates who introduced the name to the islands. In the Carribbean pirates frequently staged their raids on ships and settlements using these small open boats. When pirates were expelled from the Carribbean and the West Indies at the end of the seventeenth century, they re-established themselves in the Indian Ocean and may have used similar canoes for going ashore at their secret haunts in Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles, although they do not seem to have used them when attacking ships.
The Seychelles pirogue is a narrow canoe with up-curved ends and a shallow draft, ideal for landing on surf beaches and passing over shallow reefs, although they are easily capsized by the inexperienced. They were powered by oars, or could be punted in shallow water. They varied in length according to what use they were put, and the larger pirogues could be rowed by several pairs of oarsmen. On the outer islands deeper pirogues were used to transport loads of copra out to the schooner which would bring it back to Mahe. These were heavy when laden and required as many as 15 sets of oars. If the oarsmen were lucky, and the wind was in the right direction, they would raise a 'voile coco' or a sail made from a coconut leaf. Charles Alluand, writing in 1892 tells how he "took a pirogue and headed for the south of the island. My oarsmen put up a 'voile coco' that is a coconut leaf, plaited in the form of a sail, and they crossed their arms as the wind was most favorable. It is difficult to imagine a more delightful way to travel" Without a kindly wind it was a hard slog in the days when they might have had to row for 30 hours for a trip to La Digue from Mahe, for example. Then they would keep up their morale with singing. “The return of the rowing boats from Silhouette and the other islands is very pleasant to the ear;" wrote H.W. Estridge in 1885, "a still moonlight with hardly a ripple on the water; far far away a gentle sound of singing, more like the swell of an organ than anything else; it comes nearer and nearer, until at last you can distinctly catch the sound that comes from human voices. Although they may have pulled for many hours, they cheer each other in this way when approaching their destination. They also sound a conch shell on starting and returning from their journey.”
Many pirogues would have been built on La Digue, traditionally the boat building centre of Seychelles. They were made from the wood of the takamaka tree, which until recently was one of the commonest coastal trees. They were built in three sections: the ends shaped from sections of solid tree trunk, the centre from two separate pieces, held together with copper tacks and the seam covered by copper strips and caulked. They were between 15-36 feet long depending upon their purpose and traditionally painted black and white. Unlike the fibreglass boats which have replaced them, they were very high maintenance. Wendy Veevers-Carter, writing in the 1970's describes them as "leaking patchwork quilts always in need of caulking cotton, copper sheet, blanc d’espagne, linseed oil, blacking, copper tacks, and wood, wood which has to be bought in Mahe and transported to the island or sawn on the island".
It was not customary for the fishermen to own their pirogues. On the outer islands, the island owner also owned the pirogues used for the daily fishing expeditions, as Veevers-Carter explains: “… the men were obliged by custom to ask for the loan of the property boat, and all island owners or lessees are equally obliged to lend it – in return for a share of the catch…" In 1968 Burton Benedict noted that on Mahe “fishermen do not usually own their pirogues. They are often owned by estates and let out to fishermen on a share basis. One part of the catch goes to each member of the crew and one part to the owner. A new pirogue costs about Rs300-500 but a second hand one can be had for about Rs150-200. Only 3 fishermen in town and 2 in the rural area owned their own boats."
Until a network of roads was established on the larger islands, the pirogue was the main means of transport, people getting from a to b around the coast or to small offshore islands. “They also have numerous canoes, built and fitted with much skill and neatness. In these they pay their visits from island to island, and at the close of a party it sounds rather novel to a stranger to hear ‘Madame Chose’s canoe’ instead of carriage, announced as in waiting; torches are at hand, they are lighted to the water, where some stout Negroes, almost in a state of nudity, await to transport the ladies and gentlemen,” wrote a visitor to the islands in 1824. And the Seychellois were then, as now, excellent boatmen, having total confidence in their pirogues; “they are skilful and daring in their pirogues and sailing boats. As you approach the Seychelles you often come across lone boatmen paddling their pirogues several miles out undismayed by the heavy ocean swells,” wrote one admiring visitor.
The primary use for the pirogue was for fishing, which was done by line, net and bamboo fish trap (casier; Kreol kazye). Fish traps are made from a heavy bamboo woven to form two flat, W-shaped sides which are joined together with another long strip of woven bamboo. There is a cone-shaped mouth in the middle of the ‘W’. A small opening at the narrow end allows fish to enter, but they cannot find the way out again easily. Such traps are used in several different ways. They are weighted and left on the reef at the start of a day's fishing, marked with a buoy or traditionally a piece of floating bamboo. When the day's fishing is over they return to collect the contents. Sometimes several traps are set out on the reef and left there, checked and rebaited every day. If there is no boat, a fisherman may walk out to the reef at low tide, setting his trap on the sea bed using heavy stones and stakes to keep it stable. Fish is either sold directly on the beach or roadside, buyers alerted to its arrival by the blowing of a conch shell, or transported to fish markets, in particular to Victoria.
On the outer islands, in the days before refrigeration, fish had to be preserved by salting and drying on racks called 'farfars'. Sacks full of dried fish would be collected over the weeks and sent back to Mahe. In fact as Veevers-Carter explains, "A plentiful supply of fish in one’s belly is ...a dream of every Seychellois, and the fulfilment of this wish is one of the great incentives to ‘faire les îles’ (to work on the outer islands). On the islands...custom decrees that every man who has finished his day’s work can ask for and expect to receive on loan a property boat, maintained at the owner’s expense. The only stipulation, also by custom, is that a quarter of the catch shall be at the disposal of the property. Managers uniformly take this to mean the manager’s share for his own personal use. And this plentiful supply of free fish is one of their incentives to come to the outer islands; after all, they don’t even have to spend their own time catching it. For this reason, all managers are…quite as keen for the men to go fishing in the afternoons…when the weather is quiet and the pirogue is out every day, managers can stack up an incredible surplus, which they can salt and send back to family or friends in Mahe. And the labourers follow suit with the rest of the catch..."
The Katyolo is a smaller version of the pirogue. It is also narrow with curving ends and flat bottomed. They are usually about 12 feet long and three feet wide. The flat bottom was made from wide takamaka boards joined together by battens. The sides are clinker built of takamaka planks and usually gaudily painted (unlike the sober black and white colour scheme used for pirogues).