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The paddle or original oar, mostly used by savages with the face to the bow,[123] is of two kinds. The long, pointed spear-like implement serves, as a rule, for deeper, and the broad-headed for shallower, waters. Both show clearly the transitional state beginning with the club and ending with the Sword.

Mr. J. E. Calder,[124] describing the Catamaran of the swamp tea-tree (Melaleuca, sp.) on the southern and western coasts of Tasmania, says (p. 23): ‘The mode of its propulsion would shock the professional or amateur waterman. Common sticks, with points instead of blades, are all that were used to urge it with its living freight through the water, and yet I am assured that its progress is not so very slow.’ Spears were employed in parts of Australia to paddle the light bark canoes,[125] and the Nicobar Islanders have an implement combining spear and paddle: it is of iron-wood, and of pointed-lozenge shape, about five feet in length.[126]

THE CLUB-SWORD.

The African paddles, usually employed upon lagoons and inland waters, are broad-headed, either rounded off or furnished with one or more short points at the end. Every tribe has its own peculiarities, and a practised eye easily knows the people by their paddles. A broad blade, almost rounded and very slightly pointed, is also made in the Austral Isles, in the Kingsmill Islands, and in the Marquesas.