Beaked Battle Hammer, Fiji

Private Collection, New York
Sotheby's, New York, November 16, 1985, lot 361 (part), consigned by the above
Abraham Rosman and Paula Rubel, New York, acquired at the above auction

Few forms of club are more renowned than the Fijian totokia. Often referred to as a “pineapple head” club, the elaborately carved head of the totokia is really a very exact depiction of the fruit of the balawa, or pandanus tree. Fergus Clunie, in his Fijian Weapons and Warfare, notes that the totokia “was designed to drive or ‘peck’ a neat hole through the enemy’s skull, the weight of the bulky head being concentrated in the point of the beak, or kedi-toki […] according to tradition [totokia] were particularly favoured for murder and in skirmish warfare in thick bush […]” (Clunie, Fijian Weapons and Warfare, Suva, 1977, p. 55). The suffix titobu indicates that the face of the club at the base of the beak is concave or flat, as is the case here. The present club's shaft has been left plain, and one’s attention is immediately drawn to the beautifully figured wood.