When we find models of this class of weapon so widely distributed in the lower creation, it is not surprising that the first efforts of mankind in the construction of trenchant implements, should so universally consist of teeth or flint flakes, arranged along the edges of staves or clubs, in exact imitation of the examples which he finds ready to his hand, in the mouths of the animals which he captures, and in which he is dependent for his food. Several specimens of implements, edged in this manner with sharks' teeth, from the Museum of the Institution, are now exhibited (Figs. 71, 72, 73, 74). They are found chiefly in the Marquesas, in Tahite, Depeyster's Island, Byron's Isles, the King's Mill group, Radact Island [87], and the Sandwich Islands [88], also in New Zealand (Fig. 75). They are of various shapes, and used for various cutting purposes, as knives, swords, and glaives. Two distinct methods of fastening the teeth to the wood prevail in the Polynesian Islands; firstly, by inserting them in a groove cut in the sides of the stick or weapon, and, secondly, by arranging the teeth in a row, along the sides of the stick, between two small strips of wood on either side of the teeth, lashed on to the staff, in all cases, with small strings, composed of plant fibre. The points of the teeth are usually arranged in two opposite directions on the same staff, so that a severe cut may be given either in thrusting or withdrawing the weapon. [89]
A similarly constructed implement, also edged with sharks' teeth, was found by Captain Graah, on the east coast of Greenland, and is mentioned in Dr. King's paper on the industrial arts of the Esquimaux, in the Transactions of the Ethnological Society, [90] The teeth in this implement were secured by small nails, or pegs of bone; it was also used formerly on the West Coast. A precisely similar implement (Fig. 76), but showing an advance in art by being set with a row of chips of meteoric iron, was found amongst the Esquimaux of Davis Strait, and is now in the department of meteorolites in the British Museum. Others, of the same nature, from Greenland, are in the Christy collection (Fig. 77). The pacho, of the South Sea Islands, appears to have been a sort of club, armed on the inner side with shark's teeth, set in the same manner. [91]