Club Trivia. Have a guess!

[RSWORD]

Originally Posted by Timo Nieminen

While the profile is similar to the Australian club in the drawing, the 3D shape doesn't look very Australian to me.

From the caption in Partington, club #3 looks like a boomerang-club to me, a flattened club that can be thrown as a boomerang (non-returning, of course). These are often called "lil-lil", and that should find some examples when used as a search term.

One from the British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/researc...13469&partId=1 (photos attached).

There are Australian sword-clubs with long round handles, but the caption "used as swords and as missiles" suggests to me it isn't one of these. One example of a long-handled sword-club:
https://australianmuseum.net.au/image/e076955-club

Yes, unfortunately the example in the book does not give us a feel for the thickness of the club. The book example is 35 1/2” which seems long for most boomerang or throwing clubs and after an exhaustive search in Partingtons, Oldmans and Webster’s this is the only example I can find that has the same shape grip. Plus mine is comparable length.

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by RSWORD

Yes, unfortunately the example in the book does not give us a feel for the thickness of the club. The book example is 35 1/2” which seems long for most boomerang or throwing clubs

35" is a big boomerang, but it isn't hard to find examples of old boomerangs of that size. A few examples from the British Museum:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/researc...86825&partId=1
http://www.britishmuseum.org/researc...01810&partId=1
http://www.britishmuseum.org/researc...89074&partId=1
http://www.britishmuseum.org/researc...13776&partId=1
http://www.britishmuseum.org/researc...07195&partId=1