A 20th century Papua New Guinean boat prow carved as a head of a crocodile. The country is a very rugged with few roads, so canoes were an essential mode of transportation. Villagers traveled the inland rivers, swamp lands, lagoons, and coastal regions of their territories.

The Seattle Art Museum describes a similar prow: "For Iatmul people, the river is their mother and a crocodile ancestor once carried Earth from the primeval ocean up on its back to create their island home. Sitting in a canoe with this prow, people rode on the back of a powerful creature to merge with a river with its many relatives." (http://bit.ly/39THe7v)