Club from the Philippines

[CourseEight]

According to Wikipedia, the wood density of a floss silk is 0.27 g/cm^3. Though no dimensions are given, figuring the club to be about 1 m long and 5 cm in diameter based on the pictures, and figuring it to be a cylinder, would give it a weight of 0.27*100*2.5^2*pi = 530 g, agreeing with fearn rather light for a club, yes? Of course, if poison is used all bets are off, and if Tim's suggestion that it may be South American is true, the natives there do certainly use poisons on their darts. Of course, they do in the Phillipines too I think. Dimensions, weight, and a picture of the cross section WOULD certainly help. I was unable to find a wood density for young spiny rattan...

[RSWORD]

Too light for a war club but perhaps just right for a fish whomper.

[fearn]

Hi RSword,

I'd respectfully disagree.

1. Force increases directly with mass, but as the square of speed. Heavy is good, but (within limits) there is a beneficial tradeoff between speed and weight. While I'm all in favor of heavy wooden clubs, I wouldn't count this one out just because it wasn't, say, ebony or ironwood.

B. Those spikes concentrate the force somewhat.

III. Fish (generally) have smaller brains than most people, meaning that you need to really whack them over the head to kill them. People, on the other hand, have thin skins, and getting tattooed with a spiked club (especially a number of times) could end a fight, even if it didn't break bones.

I'd guess it's a person-whacker, not a fish-whomper.

As for poison, my guess is that it's not poisonous. The reason is that whoever made it peeled the bark away for the grip. In many plants, that would bare a large area containing poisonous sap right where the hand of the owner went. If one blister or cut would mean that you got poisoned by your own weapon, I'd bet that they'd wrap the grip pretty thoroughly. It doesn't look like they've done it here.

My 0.02 cents.

F