Throwing Club, Fiji

Throwing clubs, or i ula, were invariably made of a single piece of wood, usually an uprooted shrub. The present lot is an i ula tavatava, its name referring to the form of its “elegant fluted head” (Clunie, Fijian Weapons and Warfare, 1977, p. 60), rather than to the characteristic zig-zag grip carving, which is also known as tavatava.

The Wesleyan missionary Thomas Williams wrote that “another weapon much used is the missile club, which is worn stuck in the girdle, sometimes in pairs, like pistols. […] This is hurled with great precision, and used formerly to be the favourite implement of assassination.” (Williams, and Stringer, ed., Fiji and the Fijians, Vol. I: The Islands and their Inhabitants, London, 1858, p. 57).