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Wooden dance club from the Santa Cruz Islands, known as a napa dance club. Handle has knob at the base. Heavily decorated with triangles, lines, and geometiic lozenge shapes in black paint. There are two flattened trianglar carved areas on the inner face of the club, also decorated. The handle is the only section with no decoration. The club was used during the napa dance, when male dancers struck their clubs together in a ritual manner. This example is missing its fringe of coconut fibers usually found wrapped around the top of the handle.
ceremonial objects
clubs (weapons)
wood (plant material)
Club
Original to Stephen Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
E47,145
Unknown
Pacific Island Group
3 x 27 1/2 x 2 1/4 (HxWxD) (inches)
Gift of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.2356
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