A Very Fine and Rare Oceanic Club Finely Carved with Twenty-Nine ‘Glyph’s’

Object Description

A Very Fine and Rare Oceanic Club Finely Carved with Twenty-Nine ‘Glyph’s’
Fine colour and patina
Wood
Tonga
Late 18th Century

SIZE: 85cm long – 33½ ins long

Object History

Privately entered lot, English auction
Purchased through Finch and Co, June 2010
Ex Private collection

Object Literature

Finely engraved using stone, bird bone or shark’s tooth tools this club expresses the characteristically refined and complex style of Tongan decoration practised on war clubs in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The numerous zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures symbolically display the weapon’s ‘mana’ and it would have been a treasured possession.
On Tonga and Fiji war occupied the entire male population. Boys were trained in the wielding and parrying of arms from infancy, only being bestowed with a real man’s name once they had slain an enemy. Most fights began with a skirmish, showers of arrows, slung stones and spears being exchanged, but casualties became serious when opposing parties came to grips with clubs. Effective in close combat, clubs could shatter an enemy’s skull and cause irreversible damage to what Tongans and Fijians considered the most sacred part of the anatomy – the head.

Object Details