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1886.1.1453

Wooden club. Birdheaded. With a thickened grip.

On display

1886.1.1453

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Collection type
Object
Description
Wooden club. Birdheaded. With a thickened grip.
Long description
Club carved from heavy wood, with a small ridged head that comes to a point. [JU 18/12/2013]
Geographical reference
New Caledonia (Special Collectivity of France)
Oceania > Melanesia > New Caledonia (Special Collectivity of France)
Grande Terre North Province Poéubo commune Balad district
Date / Period
Date made: Before 13/09/1774
Date collected
Between 4 and 13 September 1774
Acquisition information
Transferred: 19/04/1886
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Process Carved
Dimensions
Length: max 710 mm, Width: max 146 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1886.1.1453 Other numbers: Forster 156, 158, or 159
Associated publications
Listed under item 147 on page 184 of A Catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum Descriptive of the Zoological Specimens, Antiquities, Coins, and Miscellaneous Curiosities (Oxford, 1836): 'South Sea Islands, &c.... 147. Ten war clubs of various forms from the same [i.e. South Sea Islands.' [JC 14 3 2015] Listed according to the 'Forster list' numbering system in 'From the Islands of the South Seas 1773–4': An Exhibition of a Collection Made on Capn. Cook’s Second Voyage of Discovery by J. R. Forster—A Short Guide, by Peter Gathercole (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, no date [1970]): '156-159. four clubs, variously shaped. A pity that Forster is not more explicit, for only two have survived, one only (No. 157) [1886.1.1456] with an original label. This club has a notched mushroom head. The other [1886.1.1453] is birdheaded. Of casuarina wood, both have thickened grips, and as Cook says "are neatly made". Lengths: 75cm. and 72cm.' [unsigned, undated; JC 14 3 2015] Listed under numbers 10-13 under ‘New Caledonia...Clubs’ on page 246 of 'Artificial Curiosities': Being an Exposition of Native Manufactures Collected on the Three Pacific Voyages of Captain James Cook, R.N. at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, January 18, 1978 - August 31, 1978 on the Occasion of the Bicentennial of the European Discovery of the Hawaiian Islands by Captain Cook - January 18, 1778 (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication 65), by Adrienne L. Kaeppler (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1978): '10-13. Four clubs, Oxford (156-159). Three missing. Evidence: Forster collection. Literature: Gathercole, n.d. (1970) [see above]'. NB Kaeppler adds in a note (page 246, note 2): 'In my view the identification of the bird-headed club [i.e. this club] is unlikely.' [JP 24/7/2002; JC 14 3 2015] Published as part of the Forster Collection on a dedicated website at www.prm.ox.ac.uk/forster (from February 2001). [JC 7 7 2005] For an account of the history of the collection of which this is part, see 'The Cook-Voyage Collections at Oxford, 1772–1775', by Jeremy Coote, in Jeremy Coote (ed.), Cook-Voyage Collections of 'Artificial Curiosities' in Britain and Ireland, 1771–2015 (MEG Occasional Paper No. 5), Oxford: Museum Ethnographers Group (2015), pp. 74–122. (Copy in RDF: Researchers: Jeremy Coote (Cook-Voyage Collections).) [JC 9 6 2016]

Search terms: Weapon, Club

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