The Arawak’s were skilled canoe builders and built very long canoes that could carry up to 80 people (some sources give up to 150 people), the dugout was made mostly from the silk cotton tree. The Arawak word for the dugout is “canoa” and the term is used throughout the West Indies, and much of Latin America
After felling the tree the interior of the tree was slowly burned out, the hollowed trunk would then be wetted and wooden wedges of different lengths inserted to widen in the middle and tapper it at the ends. The canoe was then buried in damp sand to cure before being dried in the sun.
Turks and Caicos Islands 1983 4c sg769, scott578
Source: Aak to Zumbra a Dictionary of the World’s Watercraft. https://arawakinfo.wikispaces.com/Transportation click on transportation.