1954.2.50

Collection type

Object

Description

Paddle-shaped wooden war club. Dark in colour - varnished? [ZM 4/4/2007]

Geographical reference

Guyana

Latin America and the Caribbean > South America > Guyana

Mazaruni River Kukui River

Cultural groups

Akawaio

Person

Field collector Audrey Butt Colson

PRM source Audrey Butt Colson

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1952

Date collected

1951 - 1952

Acquisition information

Donated: 1954

Materials and processes

Material Wood Plant, Process Carved, Process Varnished

Dimensions

Depth: max 22 mm, Width: max 52 mm, Length: max 552 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1954.2.50

Research and responses

For illustrations of and a discussion about types of clubs from Guyana see pp 171-173 of Walter Edmund Roth 'An Introductory Study of the Arts, Crafts, and Customs of the Guiana Indians' in the Thirty-Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1916-1917, Washington Government Printing Office 1924. [ZM 19/04/2007]

Examined by Professor Peter Riviere in April 2007 who noted that the paddle-style clubs usually broaden out to wide blade whereas this club has a leaf-shaped pointed blade so does not fit the description of this type of club but is more similar to those referred to as staffs. [ZM 19/04/2007]

Associated publications

The existence of this club and the circumstances of its recovery were noted in note 5 on page 264 of 'One Blow Scatters the Brains: An Ethnographic History of the Guiana War Club', by Warwick Bray, in Unknown Amazon: Culture in Nature in Ancient Brazil, edited by Colin McEwan, Christiana Barreto, and Eduardo Neves, London: British Museum Press (2001), pp. 252-65: 'Another club was found at low water in the Kukui river (in Akawaio territory in British Guiana) and is now in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, no. 1954.2.50'; copy in RDF: Researchers: Bray. [JC 23 6 2005]

Search terms: Weapon, Club