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Locomotion must necessarily have been largely by water at first.
It was the reproach of the Choctaws living on the Mississippi river that they could not swim, but it would be very difficult to find another tribe of savages devoid of this art.
The Labrador Indians use little paddles to drag themselves quickly through the water.
The tribes on the borders of Mexico, in Peru, and in several localities in the Eastern Continent, tie bundles of reeds together as floats.
The ancient Assyrians are represented as buoying themselves upon inflated goatskins.
Cardinal Wolsey confessed that he had ventured, like wanton boys who swim on bladders, far beyond his depth.
The breaking of his high-blown

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pride was true, no doubt, but the bladders used as life preservers by boys and men are difficult to burst.

On the Gulf of California there are tribes that lash two light bits of wood to a vine which they place against the breasts, exactly after the manner of the cork life-preservers.
Even the eastern Eskimo at times ride on the seal- skin harpoon floats.
Except in the matter of flying, the savage man solved the difficulty of going where he pleased.


Ellis says, " Like the inhabitants of most of the islands of the Pacific the Tahitians are fond of the water, and lose all dread of it before they are old enough to know

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 the danger."
In surf swimming they used a small board, on which they were accustomed to ride inward on the breakers.
The Sandwich islanders were especially skilful with the swimming board, being able to sit, kneel, and even to stand on them when the crest of the wave was pushing shoreward." (1)
In the sport called pakaka- nalu, the player rides the surf sitting in his canoe.
The canoe poised on the inclined plain, in advance of the wave, is carried shoreward at such speed that it is possible to avoid broaching and being upset only by a delicate adjustment of forces and great skill and judgment with the paddle. (2)