War Club, Fiji

This classic skull smashing club is of the waka type, a form with a head that is “typified by the short length of retained tap root and the mace-like buttress roots of the uprooted sapling from which the club was made.” (Clunie, Fijian Weapons and Warfare, Suva, 1977, p. 57). The suffix vividrasa refers to the coir sinnet bindings around the shaft; this fine, plaited string, magimagi, was made by men in the evenings, as they whiled away the hours.

A similar waka vividrasa which belonged to Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau, the King of Fiji and vunivalu, or warlord of Bau, is in the collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart (inv. no. A.J.T. 60; illustrated in Ewins, Fijian Artefacts [etc.], Hobart, 1982, p. 36, fig. 43, cat. no. M5425).