Wooden club with pointed top and a length of animal tail shrunk onto the centre as a grip. The butt is carved as a socketed spike [SM 14/05/2007].

Collection type: Object
Description: Wooden club with pointed top and a length of animal tail shrunk onto the centre as a grip. The butt is carved as a socketed spike [SM 14/05/2007].
Long description: Club carved from a single piece of light yellowish brown wood (Pantone 7510C), polished and possibly stained over the upper part where it is a deeper reddish brown colour (Pantone 731C). The top is slightly pointed, on a narrow body that swells out slightly on the upper part, then tapers in towards the base, being mostly oval in section throughout. The last part of the latter steps out slightly from the line of the shaft, before tapering to a point, and looks to have been carved in imitation of a metal socketed spike. The middle third of the body has been covered with a sheath made from dark brown to reddish brown animal hide or leather (Pantone 439C), cut from a length of animal's tail, and moulded onto the shaft while wet, allowing it to shrink to the correct shape. This was probably used as a hand grip. The skin of the upper part has been folded slightly; below this is a narrow raised band around the circumference. There are numerous lentoid shaped impressions across the surface of the hide, where it has been tooled; these become fainter further down the shaft as the hide becomes thinner. The object is complete and intact, and has a weight of 500.2 grams. It is 915 mm long, with the hide sheath having a length of 395 mm. The maximum width of the wooden body is 35 mm, and the maximum thickness 33 mm; the top of the butt 'spike' has a width of 18 mm, and the thickest part of the hide sheath, where there is a raised band, measures 39 by 38 mm [RTS 13/12/2004].
Geographical reference: South Sudan
Africa > Eastern Africa > South Sudan; Warab Kornuk
Cultural groups: Dinka
Person: Field collector Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton; Field collector Hannah Powell-Cotton; PRM source Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1933
Date collected: 25th May 1933
Acquisition information: Donated: 1934
Materials and processes: Material Wood Plant, Material Animal Hide Skin, Material Animal Tail, Process Carved, Process Tooled, Process Polished, Process Stained
Dimensions: Diameter: max 35 mm wooden body, Length 395 mm sheath grip, Length 915 mm, Diameter: max 39 mm sheath grip, Weight 500.2 g
Object numbers: Accession number: 1934.8.7 Other numbers: 2630
Research and responses: According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, the White Nile is the section of the Nile between Malakal and Khartoum, Sudan [CW 23/3/2000]. However the way in which this term has been used seems to have changed since this object was collected, and the term is probably used here in a broader sense; both Kornuk and Fanamweir seem to be located in Warab administrative district. Powell-Cotton made ethnographic films during his 1932-3 shooting expedition to southern Sudan; footage included a Dinka hunter setting a trap, a staged fight between a Dinka and Jur (each armed with a 'knobkerry and heavy parrying shield') and a female Dinka potter at work (see the description in Mrs Powell Cotton, "Village Handicrafts in the Sudan", Man 34 (112), pp 90-91).
Nebel gives the definition as ‘Atuel, club’ (Nebel 1979, Dinka-English Dictionary, p. 13), while Langton uses the same term to describe a type of wooden stick (see 1979.20.115). A similar Dinka object, with carved 'spike' at butt, was published by Boccassino, but lacks the central grip (R. Boccassino, 1960, "Contributo allo studio dell’ ergologia delle popolazioni Nilotiche e Nilo-camitche", Annali Lateranensi XXIV, fig. 38).
It is not clear why Powell-Cotton describes this as having 'hair covered with hide', as no hair is visible. Note that the length given in the accessions book is incorrect [RTS 13/12/2004].

Search terms: Weapon, Club