Cylindrical wooden club, Bowai, with much worn handle decorated with a chip-carved zigzag design, squared-off at the end. The shaft flares a little at the head, which is slightly domed. [JC [OPS Move] 14/09/2016]

Collection type: Object
Description: Cylindrical wooden club, Bowai, with much worn handle decorated with a chip-carved zigzag design, squared-off at the end. The shaft flares a little at the head, which is slightly domed. [JC [OPS Move] 14/09/2016]
Geographical reference: Fiji
Oceania > Melanesia > Fiji
Person: Associated person Stephen William Silver; Field collector Unknown Collector; PRM source Sarah Constance Silver
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1906
Date collected: By 1906
Acquisition information: Donated: 03/1906
Materials and processes: Material Wood Plant, Process Carved, Process Chip Carved
Dimensions: Length: max 1025 mm, Diameter: max 45 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1906.20.26
Research and responses: See F Clunie 'Fijian Weapons and Warfare' 1977 Fiji Museum, Suva, Bulletin of the Fiji Museum no.2 and R. Ewins, Fijian Artefacts: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery collection' Australia 1982: p.29. "Bowai (baseball-bat clubs) and Gadi (pole clubs). The difference between bowai and gadi is often not very clear. Typically, a bowai is shaped like a baseball bat, with distinctly tapered shaft and rounded tip. In practice, many examples appear as hybrids. Cakobau presented his favourite bowai to Queen Victoria at the time of Cession; it was ornamented in silver and returned by King George V to Fiji as the Mace of Parliament, which it remains today. The bowai was probably introduced from Tonga (where it was called povai) or Samoa. Gadi were named for the wood from which they were frequently made (gadi-Storckiella vitiensis), and were virtually straight-shafted heavy poles, sometime plain, sometimes decorated, usually with flat ends." [FC 26/09/2011]

Search terms: Weapon, Club

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