- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Club carved from a dark wood carved into a flat oval shape at one end. [FB 14/9/2016]
- Long description
- Club carved from a dark wood carved into a flat oval shape at one end. A handwritten paper label has been adhered to this end of the club.
- Geographical reference
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1886
- Date collected
- By 1886
- Acquisition information
- Transferred: 19/04/1886
- Materials and processes
- Material Wood Plant, Process Carved
- Dimensions
- Length: max 890 mm, Width: max 110 mm, Depth: max 30 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1886.1.1468
- Research and responses
It is not clear what evidence, if any, Edward Evans and/or his colleagues at the Ashmolean had for associating this club with those listed under numbers 146 or 147 in the 1836 catalogue, or for provenancing it to New Guinea, or for associating it with 'Captain Cook's collection.... Given by Reinhold Forster'. Nor is it clear what grounds Henry Balfour had for suggesting a Tupi provenance. [JC 11 10 2012]
The reference on the cards in the card index is page 157 in Hans Staden: The True History of His Captivity, 1557 (The Broadway Travellers series) (transl. and ed. Malcolm Letts), (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1928) (photocopy of relevant page in RDF). There is only a broad similarity between the shaft and head of the club. I fail to see why Balfour thought the resemblance was significant. Nor is it clear why he records that the head is made of stone and painted. A Melanesian provenance seems far more likely to me. [JC 13 8 2015]
- Associated publications
- Supposedly listed under 146 or 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.... 146. Twelve clubs and paddles, from the South Sea Islands. 147. Ten war clubs of various forms from the same.' [JC 11 10 2012]
1886.1.1468
Club carved from a dark wood carved into a flat oval shape at one end. [FB 14/9/2016]
1886.1.1468
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