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The Stone Age produced nothing more remarkable than the Pattu-Pattu or Meri of New Zealand, which an arrested development prevented becoming a Sword. Its shape, that of an animal’s blade-bone, suggests its primitive material; and New Guinea has an almost similar form, with corresponding ornamentation in wood. What assimilates it to the Sword is that it is sharp-edged at the top as well as at the side. It is used for ‘prodding’ as well as for striking, and the place usually chosen for the blow is the head, above the ear, where the skull is weakest. Some specimens are of the finest green jade or nephrite,[138] a refractory stone which must have been most troublesome to fashion.

THE SWORD OF WOOD AND STONE.

Wood, however hard and heavy, made a sorry cutting weapon, and stone a sorrier Sword; but the union of the two improved both. Hence we may divide wooden Swords into the plain and the toothed blades, the latter—

Armed with those little hook-teeth in the edge,

To open in the flesh and shut again.