Wã

Canoes

Wã (Canoe) - Nothing in Kala material culture is more fundamental to Kala-speakers’ lives. Kala ancestors arrived in Papua New Guinea by canoe as part of the Austronesian expansion, around 3000 BCE. This expansion was made possible by the canoe, the first, true ocean-going vessel.

Today, Kala-speakers’ lives on rivers and the ocean – the focus of the Kala language documentation project – remain strongly tied to canoes.