Stone star club Morobe province
 

This is my latest piece. It is in the UK now so will have it soon. The anticipation is too much for me to hold back. I have some excellent pictures from the seller which I do not think I could better, except that I can show comparison pictures which I always feels helps one to make more of a sense of the item. Coming from AUS it most probably collected post 1914 and may well have been collected as late as the 1970s. That is not to dismiss the possibility that it could be earlier the border between British Papua New Guinea and German New Guinea was at times quite porous especially when gold was found. I say that it is from the Kukukuku/Anga {that straddle the old border} people only as they have retained a fascination and more researched than other peoples that inhabit the Morobe province. As some of the peoples living in the highlands were not contacted until the mid 1930's and even up to the 1950's lots of interesting information can be found about exploration and police patrolling. View the links to gain more information. The Pitt-Rivers link is very good, go to full screen. Wood and stone club making is shown in the film. Beatrice Blackwood mentions in her publication "The Kukukuku Of The Upper Watut" that she was only allowed to under take her research in the areas of regular patrols. The other links are just history of patrols.

It is not the finest of star shape club that can be found from Papua New Guinea as a whole land but still for me a nice find. I especially like the carry strap. When it is here I can be show it with other clubs from the area.

http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/blackwood.html expand and enjoy.

http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_peopl...lism-kuru.html good 1950's picture of warriors

http://libraries.ucsd.edu/collection...ts.html#Morobe historic list of patrols

Hello Tim,

not my area of collecting but since nobody give a comment until now I will do it. ;) :D

Very nice club of this area in very good condition with nice using patina. A great addition to your growing club collection.

Regards,
Detlef

It is here and the sellers pictures do not show the whole picture. To start with it is not a star shape. One point is longer than all the rest and with the curve to the haft, lends a bias to the forward motion of the club. When seen next to the wooden club it is clear that they are made from the same timber and obviously from the same clan of peoples in the Mendi valley. Interestingly the wood club came from Germany and the stone club as I said from Australia. That is quite a coincidence? Shown with other clubs, the only one not from the Mendi valley is the disc form club. :) :) :) ++

I bit of info on border disputes, 1909 gold finding.


https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...covery&f=false

It is said that a "Wilhelm Dammkohler" discovered gold and was killed by the Kukukuku. 1907

Interesting piece Tim, congratulations. Anything similar in the Edge-Partington book ?

A VERY NICE SELECTION. :D THE CURVED HANDLE AND THE WAY THE STONE HEAD IS MADE WITH TWO SHORTER SPIKES OPPOSITE EACH OTHER AND THREE LONGER ONES OPPOSITE IS INTERESTING.

The only other club I have with such pronounced curvature is from the New Hebrides. It weighs 1087 kg and is 56 cm long. The stone club is 1.028 kg and 68 cm long. There must be some way of working out the relation between length/curvature and weight to potential force or something mathematical physics kind of stuff. I always tried "the dog eat it" no homework excuse. Who wants to go to school if the sun is out? :)