Pre-contact Maori whalebone club

[fearn]

I'm also skeptical about a pre-contact age on that club. However, I think it came from the south Pacific, not the Pacific Northwest.

Here's my reasoning:

1. Pre-Contact vs. Post-Contact: The carving looks like it was done with metal tools. Granted, I haven't done any carving on whale bone (for the obvious reason of not having any), but Pre-Contact lines would have been ground and chipped in with stone tools. This tends to make for round bottoms and smooth edges. If you can imagine free-handing those circular incisions using (perhaps) a stick and some sand, or an awl made from something, then you'll see what the issue is. With a metal drill, it's a trivial figure to make. Ditto with the edges around the mouth. Now, if you can see work marks that makes you think someone laboriously incised all that stuff, then Pre-Contact looks more likely.

2. South Pacific vs. North Pacific: to me, it looks like Polynesian work. My thought is that in the early days, a number of Polynesians, including Maori, served on the whaling boats. I could see such a sailor making this club on-board or afterward, using some bone from one of their catches.

That's my 0.0002 pence,

F