Mystery Wooden Club!

[Ian]

Hello George and welcome to the Ethnographic Forum!

I was surprised to read in your original post that you have been assured this is not an Oceanic club. That would have been my first thought, although the incised decoration on the end of the handle is unusual for a Fijian ula (which your club certainly resembles). The ula is made from a root ball and the club head is often shaped into the same ovoid form that yours exhibits. The ula handle erupts directly from the root ball, as yours does, and is roughly the same length. As i'm sure you are aware, the ula was used as a throwing weapon, and its decoration is usually confined to simple linear designs and chips incised at the end of the handle. A substantial fraction have no such decoration. Attached are pictures of an old example with incised decorations at the end of the handle.

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