1884.12.273

Collection type

Object

Description

Wood club with sword-like shape, curved edge and elaborate carving on the butt and above the handle. [SM 23/03/2007]

Long description

Wood club with sword-like shape, curved edge and elaborate carving on the butt and above the handle. The head is shaped like a single edged sword blade, with a pointed end. Between the head and hilt is decorated with a carved figure of a man on two faces. The butt is elaborately carved and shaped like a pommel. It is inlaid on both sides with a circular piece of shell. There is a hole through the hilt, presumably for a hanging or carrying strap. [SM 23/03/2007]

Geographical reference

New Zealand

Oceania > Australia and New Zealand > New Zealand

Cultural groups

Māori

Person

Maker Unknown Maker

Field collector Unknown Collector

PRM source Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers founding collection

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1862

Date collected

By 1862

Acquisition information

Donated: 1884

Materials and processes

Material Wood Plant, Material Shell, Process Carved, Process Inlaid

Dimensions

Length: max 820 mm, Width: max 52 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1884.12.273 PR Cat other PR nos: 459

Research and responses

In 1978, David Simmons recorded the holdings of Māori material in a number of museums in Europe and North America including, in May 1978, the Pitt Rivers Museum. (For copies of his notes and related correspondence, see RDF: Researchers: Simmons.) In 1996, Simmons put together the ‘draft catalogues’ he had prepared, depositing copies in, at least, the National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa and the British Museum. The ‘draft catalogue’ of the Māori material in the PRM, which includes photocopies of some of the relevant catalogue index cards and annotations supplied by PRM assistant curator Lynne Williamson in 1982, was included in ‘Draft Catalogues of Maori Material in English Museums II. Prepared by David Simmons from records made in 1978… Compiled in Auckland in 1996’. It is now widely accepted that Simmons’s assertions about the provenance and history of individual Māori objects are not to be trusted without further evidence and/or documentation. Nevertheless, as the entries in this document have been referred in the literature, in July 2016 I obtained from the British Museum scans of the pages devoted to the PRM’s collections (numbered by hand as pages 43 to 62), printing out a copy for the RDF. For the entry for this object, see page 52 (page 8 on Simmons's original list). [JC 28 7 2016]

Search terms: Weapon, Ritual and Ceremonial, Club, Ceremonial Object