中國古代與太平洋區的方舟與樓船

THE DOUBLE CANOE AND DECK CANOE IN ANCIENT CHINA AND THE OCEANIA

在本刊第二十六期作者發表中國古代與印度太平兩洋的戈船考一文，本文的中國古代與太平洋區的方舟與樓船乃為前文之續。太平洋與印度洋上航海的工具有四種：（一）桴栰；（二）戈船；（三）方舟；（四）樓船。這四種水運工具能載重致遠，將操南島 （Austronesian）語系的同一民族，由亞洲東岸散佈移居在印度太平兩洋星羅棋佈海島上，且西達非洲東岸，東抵南美西岸。世界上任何同一語系的民族，分佈之廣無出其右者。

This paper is a continuation of the article entitled the 'Outrigger Canoes in Ancient China and in Indo-Pacific Ocean', which the author previously wrote and was published in No. 26 of this Bulletin. There were in the ancient days four different types of watercraft used for sea travel in the Pacific and Indian Oceans as follows: (1) Raft; (2) outrigger canoe (also known as ko chuan 戈船一halberd canoe); (3) double canoe (also known as fang chow 方舟一square boat) , and (4) deck canoe (also known as lou chuan 樓船一tower boat). With the help of these four kinds of watercraft, which were capable of carrying heavy load and sailing for great distance, the Austronesian people had emigrated from the east coast of Asia to various islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as far to the west as the east coast of Africa and to as far as the west coast of South America in the east. To date, there has not been any other people of one language family in the world which have been so widely distributed as the Austronesians. From the sea-going rafts of Taiwan it may be induced that the rafts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans were possibly originated in ancient China (Ling, 1956: 22). According to legendary history of remote China, the raft began to be used in the time of Fu Hsi Shih 伏羲氏（the 33rd century B.C. Handy, 1927: 326). Later in the time of the Yellow Emperor 黃帝（2687 B.C.) the raft was converted into the boat The word 'fang' 方 square in the ancient oracle-bone inscriptions of Yin-Shang 殷商 epoch was written as 牙. Our research reveals that the hieroglyphic '牙' resembled the double outrigger canoe of Later ages. And through subsequent modifications of the double outrigger canoe appeared the single outrigger canoe (Ling 1968: 26-28).