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Long, heavy, cylindrical wooden war club, or povai, covered with carved panels containing small zig-zag patterns, very likely from Tonga but possibly from Samoa or Fiji. Only the handle end and top of the club are unadorned. The shape of the club tapers from narrower at the handle to wider at the head, and the head is slightly convex. A club like this would have been used in hand-to-hand combat and would have been carried by men as a sign of rank and warrior status.
clubs (weapons)
wood (plant material)
Polynesian
Club
Original to Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
E47,138?
FD139
Unknown
3 1/4 (diameter) (inches)
Gift of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.1488
Journal of the Polynesian Sociey, Vol 66, No 4, 1957
Fiji
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