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Fig. 52.—Samoan Club

(Godeffroy Collection).

Fig. 53.—Wooden Sabre.

Fig. 54.—Wooden Chopper.

Fig. 55.—Knife (Wood),

from Vanna Lava.

THE WOODEN SWORD.

The fine Ethnological Museum of Herr Cesar Godeffroy[133] of Hamburg and Samoa, illustrating the ethnology of the Pacific Islands, contains many specimens of the knob-stick bevelled on one side of the head to an edge and gradually passing into the Sword. On the right-hand entrance-wall are, or were, two fine sabres (fig. 53) of Eucalyptus-wood, labelled ‘Schwert von Bowen (Queensland).’ The Sandwich Islanders, we see, still wield the Sword-club with sharp-cutting edges, like their neighbours of New Ireland. The savage Solomon Archipelago has supplied a two-handed sabre of light and bright-yellow wood; its longitudinal mid-rib shows direct derivation from the paddle-club. There is also a lozenge-shaped hand-club, which may readily have given a model to metal-workers. It is of hard, dark, and polished wood, and the handle is whipped round with coir (Tafel xx. p. 97): the length is seventy cent. by four of maximum breadth. The Swords are unfortunately not figured in the catalogue; but there is a fine wooden knife forty-nine cent. long by six cent. broad, with open handle and highly-worked grip (Tafel xxi. p. 135). It comes from Vanna Lava, Banks Group, New Hebrides, Polynesia (fig. 55).[134]