Club with carved handle. [FC 27/09/2011]

Collection type: Object
Description: Club with carved handle. [FC 27/09/2011]
Long description: Club with carved handle. The club is of a heavy dark brown wood and cylindrical in shape. The butt end of the club has been carved to approximately 343 mm from the end with horizontal and vertical bands of zigzag tavatava design. Included in the lower band of decoration is a representation of a human figure. A hole has been made in one side of the butt end of the club which passes out through the end of the club. There are two narrow horizontal bands of zigzag design carving at the top of the club. [FC 27/09/2011]
Geographical reference: Fiji
Oceania > Melanesia > Fiji; Tonga
Oceania > Polynesia > Tonga
Person: Field collector Unknown Collector; PRM source Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1878
Date collected: By 1878
Acquisition information: Transferred: 10/02/1886
Materials and processes: Material Wood Plant, Process Carved, Process Perforated
Dimensions: Diameter: max 54 mm, Length: max 1200 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1886.1.1504 Other numbers: 24 1489 1504
Research and responses: This object was examined on the 29/30th November 2012 Andy Mills as part of the work of the AHRC-funded project 'Fijian Art: Political Power, Sacred Value, Social Transformation and Collecting Since the 18th Century' (2011-2014). His notes read: "Bowai (Clunie 11A) [see Fijian Weapons and Warfare by Fergus Clunie, Fiji Museum, 1977]. L: 1205 HW: 55 HD: 55 BW: 42 BD: 43. Head and butt both slightly convex. Engraved butt only, but with a double M1 band around the top rim. Butt sleeve: 343 mm long. [with reference to the representation of the human figure in the carving] NB distinctively not like goddess figures." [FB 30/11/2012]
The following notes are drawn from research compiled by Andy Mills as part of the DCF Cutting Edge project in 2006-2007.
The bowai (pron. Um-bow-eye) is another transnational club style in Western Polynesia, commonest in Fiji and of Fijian origin, but also to be found in Tonga and Samoa as the povai (Clunie, F. (2003) Fijian Weapons & Warfare. Suva: The Fiji Museum, p.128). In one sense, it is the most simple and straightforward design of club imaginable – a plain, slightly tapering cylinder – but to assume that this apparent simplicity reflects a simplicity of conception in the work of the carver would be to do the Fijian matai, Tongan tufunga and Samoan tufuga – master woodcarvers - a great disservice. Recent research (Mills, A. (2007) Tufunga Tongi ‘Akau: Tongan Club-Carvers & Their Arts. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of East Anglia) into the formal proportions of weapons such as the bowai has revealed that all of the weapon’s principal dimensions are carefully interrelated through a complex series of fractional relationships, mathematical squares, and so on; the formal aesthetics of their shape was not only determined by eye and hand, but also by reference to complex ideas of mathematical appropriateness; the principles of appropriateness were inscribed into the weapon by the carver, who used lengths of cordage to transfer dimensions from one part of the carving to another, subdividing and multiplying the cordage into complex fractions and multiples as he did so. Furthermore, ergonomics cannot be overlooked when discussing the form of the bowai, so close to that of an American baseball bat; of course, this is no coincidence, and the tapering cylinder offers the greatest consistency of grip and weight distribution, whether the object to be struck is a ball or a skull. [El.B 27/02/2008]
It seems strange that, if the match with the Ramsden catalogue entry is right, that the figure mentioned there is not mentioned in any of the other entries. * There is a note in the Ramsden collectors volume stating 'Retrospective numbers written in pencil down left hand column June 1975 E.S.G. Collated with A.M. but considerable problems encountered. All Ramsden seem to be in A.M.' Note that this exercise may have been the source of the confusion that occurred during Elizabeth Sandford Gunn's work on the Ashmolean collection with regard to numbers. In some instances, these numbers SEEM to have been used to number the objects (wrongly). [AP 15/7/99] This object is not mentioned in Collectors Miscellaneous XI Accession Book entry - Ramsden coll pages 223 - 255 [AP 21/7/99]

Search terms: Weapon, Club