Club, wahaika form

In traditional times the Maori warrior carried two basic weapons, one a short club, the other a longer two-handed weapon of the quarter-staff type. Several varieties of each type were developed, together with skilful techniques in close combat, much as formerly applied in European sword and knife fighting. There were also honourable conventions respecting combat and the proper method of despatching an enemy, which with short weaponry involved a thrusting blow to the opponent’s temple with the distal end of the weapon. All varieties of short club, whether of wood, stone or bone, have a sharp spatulate blade for this purpose. The handle of these clubs is invariably pierced for a flax wrist cord, which prevented the weapon’s loss during combat.

The present fine example is of the wahaika ‘billhook’ form, which usually has a small figure carved above the grip, and also a head as the butt terminal, typically with gaping mouth and tongue extended in the Maori gesture of defiance and challenge. In many areas of Polynesia clubs were carved as a modified human image, and thus besides being shaped for technical efficiency were also designed to enshrine the productive and destructive powers of deified ancestors.

Steven Hooper, 1997

Entry taken from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, Vol. 2: Pacific, African and Native North American Art, edited by Steven Hooper (Yale University Press, 1997) p. 12.