Club info please

[graeme gt]

Hi Guys,Can you help me out with this one its 4ft longwith greenish stone.

[colin henshaw]

Hi Graeme

Its from New Guinea - the stone head would have been cemented to the shaft with "putty nut". Nice piece.

Regards

[Freddy]

On the site of the Division of Antropology of the American Museum of Natural History (http://anthro.amnh.org/), I found some examples in the collection's database.

This type of club comes from New Britain and is called 'Palau'.

[graeme gt]

Thanks Guys,Putty Nut you couldnt make it up.

[Tim Simmons]

You lucky lucky chap. Not just PNG but other Islands. I believe that the stone ball heads are often held to the haft by dried clay, Atuna nut putty is an extreamly resilient substance and would still be evident. When clay is dry it would hold for most purposes at the time, think of sun dried mud bricks.

[Tim Simmons]

graeme you will find this interesting.
Piercing hole worked from both sdes. Held fast with barkcloth, easy to fall apart easy to replace. Probably why older ones like yours are always loose. Just get some tourist painted barkcloth and adapt? Pictures from 1936-7 {The Kukukuku of the Upper Watut, Beatrice Blackwood}. Sorry for such huge pictures but not much point in showing otherwise.

[graeme gt]

Great stuff Tim all i need from you now is how the Zulu wire work is done Cheers

[Tim Simmons]

I now have one of these clubs. Sorry for the indoor pictures. I am thinking that there must be different regional models and possibly different fighting techniques of these clubs. I have seen these clubs with the stone head fixed with clay or other mastic. Also as illustrated in this thread, fixed with tapa cloth, but and most seen is this loose stone head. One can see that there is no trace of mastic of any kind. Just patination and some wear. I wonder if this is a two handed weapon to use the spike end. Held in general with the hands roughly the distance from the stone and the spike. Like this it would be possible to pick and swing at relativly close contact. The fact that the stone is not fixed is not a problem, the swing keeps the stone in place. The hands can easily be brought together at the spike end for the full distance swing of over 1m and arms length. Anyway I love it

[Tim Simmons]

graeme,

All the information we need about fixing the stone head is here.

http://vernon.qm.qld.gov.au:8080/sea...&highlight=13#

I doubt we could get any of the nut putty here. Would it be acceptable to make up an alternative black putty? Using wax+tree resin or shalac and charcoal dust ?

Finding this site made me look again with a x10 loop. On the inside of the stone a black residue can be found. Also small patches on the wood

[fearn]

Hi Tim,

I'd suggest that whatever you make for putty, you make it so that it's easy to dissolve later on.

Best,

F

[junker]

Hi,

that s life in its best.

This came to me three month ago here in germany, and i want to research about it in chrismas hollidays. And now here is a topic about it, great forum.

So, mine has no fixing at the stone.
I guess it is picked up around 1900 when the teritory was called Neupommern and was a german colony (1885-1914).

There were some more Spears and a bow with arrows coming with it. One bow an a club from afrika were named to pick up in Bagamayo in 1892. These african clup (knobkerrie) is the last photo here, the other items I will put in another tread.

Alle the best from germany

Dirk

[Tim Simmons]

Dirk thank you for joining.

I got mine from Germany as it happens. I am working my way round the German collections, this February is Hamburg. I will do Stuttgart as soon as thier usual ocanic display is back up. Here is a lot more information on the preperation and use of "Parinarium nut putty" these pages are from "An Ethnology of the Admiralty Islands, S. Ohnrmus, Hawaii university press" The last picture or the colour picture with the parinarium modeled bird is from "Admiralty Islands art from the south seas, museum rietberg zurich"


Just need some nuts.

[junker]

Hi Tim,

I am located in Berlin and there ist a big museum for ethnography. ( But there was no club like ours ). It will get a new location in 2017.

Hamburg was not so interesting, for thre was a renovation, when i visited it.

Leipzig, the grassi museum is great, for my opinion.

And Dresden is only a small part of the huge part open, only the asian part in the moment, but more than 80 % weapons. And there ist the Turkish Chamber as well in Dresden. This one is my favourite.

So a lot to see in germany, and i hope I can Visit some swiss museums sometime. This year I was in Coburg and Schloß Burgk for european weapons. Emden three years ago, and ...
So less time to see all

Dirk

[Tim Simmons]

I was in Berlin this year and I thought the Dalem was very good indeed. Really good stuff on display if you are into the Islands. I do not care so much for metal stuff, I work with it. Yes Switzerland has museums on the list and one more to visit in the Netherlands.

[Tim Simmons]

Noninvasive, reversable and hard solution to the problem of a loose head. The only clubs I have seen with the original putty have been in museum. All the examples in the market that my budget is anywhere near all have loose heads. Not anymore one could adjust the colour and texture if you felt the need to, rubbing in some ash+fine grit.

This link is most helpful. Helping one understand the diffusion of metal and metal tools in the South Seas and this is just whalers. You can understand how some places became centres. Some people not so lucky, not on native trade routes, would remain without metal metal.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...YhzCWf_9Q3enng

[Gavin Nugent]

A nice tidy up Tim.

I do believe I have seen very small Cowrie like shell embedded in the 'putty' too, would be an easy addition with a little heat from the dryer.

Gav

[Tim Simmons]

Yes some are decorated with shells and feathers others are plain. If you have or can get shells you will have to stick them in while the mastic is still soft. It is a bake in the oven substance, 110c. First I tried high powered light bulb. Then hit on the wifes hair drier.