Axe, Efate, Vanuatu

Anthony Jack, London
Abraham Rosman and Paula Rubel, New York, acquired from the above on September 22, 1984

The delicacy and refinement of this weapon's beautifully carved openwork butt provide a striking contrast with the European hatchet blade hafted to the head. The Swiss ethnologist Felix Speiser, who conducted research in Vanuatu between 1910-1912, was greatly impressed by the quality of artistry he encountered on Efate and noted that weapons with this sort of openwork "can be allocated to Efate without further ado, for in no other island would the natives have known how to produce carving like this […]." (Speiser, Ethnology of Vanuatu: an Early Twentieth Century Study, Honolulu, 1996, p. 207).