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Old 21st April 2017, 11:19 PM   #18
David
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
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No worries Jim, and i was not trying to curb the discussion of other clubs here, merely trying to direct the discussion more towards Rajesh's example since that was what he would no doubt most be interested in getting information on.
Like you Jim, i also know very little about Native American weapons from a collectors perspective. I do know that the true examples of any old Native American items, be they weapons or pottery or textiles, are highly valued in the marketplace, making forgeries of such items a lucrative pastime. So we should be very careful when examining such items for appraisal.
From what i do understand, despite Hollywood's focus on the tomahawk and the bow & arrow, clubs seem to be the main weapon of war for many Eastern Woodland and Plains Indian tribes. Another interesting club form we have not mentioned yet is the ball-headed club style which seems to originate with the Eastern Woodland natives though examples of this style seem to stretch to the Eastern Plains and as far as the Western Great Lakes region. I certainly don't recognize stylistic difference, if there are any, to determine where these are found, but i do believe various club forms spread from tribe to tribe. So i'm not convinced we will find all that much difference in the usual construction used for stone-headed clubs between, say, Souix and Cherokee tribes. But maybe someone knows more about that here. Anyway, here are a few examples of the ball-headed club. With the introduction of metal these sometimes got the addition of a steel spike or blade in the head to make them all the more deadly, though bu design these clubs were already fairly efficient head crushers.
(most of these are supposedly origin clubs, though at least one is definitely a very accurate report of an original design)
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