Innu Paddles - Virtual Museum of Canada

The Virtual Museum exhibit, Tipatshimuna - Innu Stories from the Land features a variety of Innu artifacts in various museum collections. While scrolling through the collection gallery, I came across two model paddles in the collection of The Rooms  Archive, Art Gallery and Museum in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Here's the description of the first paddle:

Wooden carving of a single bladed paddle. Blade has both faces ridged, sides slanted. Arm of paddle (approximately 10.0 cm long) widens at end. Blade decorated with three sets of red parallel lines. Tip also painted red. 

Catalogue number: III-B-148

Culture: Barren Ground Innu

Institution: The Rooms, Provincial Museum Division

Place made: unknown

Maker: unknown

Collector: unknown

Date Collected: unknown

A second similar model paddle is also in their collection.

Wooden carving of a single bladed paddle. Blade has both faces ridged. Sides are slanted and the tip is rounded. Arm of paddle tapered, widening a little at the end, edge rounded. Blade decorated with two blue bands approximately 3 apart), one band bordered by red triangular pattern.

Catalogue number: III-B-149

Culture: Barren Ground Innu

Institution: The Rooms, Provincial Museum Division

Place made: unknown

Maker: unknown

Collector: unknown

Date Collected: unknown

Similarly shaped and decorated paddles have been documented before. The Material culture of the Davis Inlet and Barren Ground Naskapi outlines enthographic items collected by William Duncan Strong from the Davis Inlet and Barren Ground Naskapi (Innu) in 1927-1928. Plate 49 (pg 89) features a diagram of 4 decorated such Innu paddles.

Naskapi Paddles in the Strong Collection
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