Primitive Maldives Surfboard

Primitive Maldives surfboard brought back to France by one of the pioneers of surfing in the archipelago. This board is an incredible document of history, because it dates from before the arrival of modern surfing in the Maldives Islands at the end of the 1960s. It is however very close, by its size and its shape of the paipos, these small Hawaiian surfboards, what we could today call bodyboard, of which Captain Cook describes the use during his third voyage.
Dimensions without the sant: 76.5 x 23 x 2.4 cm
First half of the 20th century