Wooden 'pineapple' headed club, Totokia. [FB 09/12/2011]

Collection type: Object
Description: Wooden 'pineapple' headed club, Totokia. [FB 09/12/2011]
Long description: Wooden 'pineapple' headed club, Totokia. The beaked battle hammer club has an arched neck with heavily studded head, with six rows of regular carved studs and beaked end. The handle has a rounded butt and the lower part of the handle has been carved with horizontal zigzag tavatava design. The length of the handle is bound with plaited sennit fibre. The wood is a dark brown colour. [FB 09/12/2011]
Geographical reference: Fiji
Oceania > Melanesia > Fiji
Person: Field collector H.A. Tufnell; Field collector Henry Archibald Tufnell; Field collector Sir William MacGregor; PRM source Henry Anson
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1899
Date collected: By 1899
Acquisition information: Donated: 1899.
Materials and processes: Material Wood Plant, Material Sennit Coconut Seed Fibre Plant, Process Carved, Process Plaited, Process Bound
Dimensions: Width: max 220 mm, Length: max 790 mm, Depth: max 75 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1899.62.683
Research and responses: Sometimes called pineapple club, pandanus club or battle-hammer, I tuki or totokia, 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. [AP Leverhulme project on founding collection 1995-1998]
Battle-hammers - Ai tuki and Totokia. Sometimes called pineapple clubs, or more accurately pandanus clubs (since they were fashioned after the pandanus fruit). The word i tuki also means hammer, and they were just that, with an arched neck, heavy studded head, and cone-shaped 'business end'. The totokia ('pecker' or 'beaked' battle hammer) was a development, the beak being used to deliver the coup de grace by neatly piercing the skull. It has been called by Clunie 'the most Fijian of all war clubs' R. Ewins, Fijian Artefacts: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery collection' Australia 1982, p.37. [FB 09/12/2011]

Search terms: Weapon, Club

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