i\^c>biT^ 



STONE CLUBS 149 



the other, round which is fixed a piece of shark's skin or 

 the prickly skin from the back of the Sting Ray and 

 often with it is tied the saw of a small Saw fish ; such 

 a club appears to be capable of inflicting a very nasty 

 wound. 7>r^ 



There is a great variety of stone-headed clubs, but ^lv^^^ 

 they are all alike in being furnished wdth a wooden shaft, 

 which is usually a plain piece of wood, but occasionally 

 carved near the club end. The stone head is pierced in 

 the middle by a round hole about an inch in diameter, 

 through which the shaft is passed and fixed firmly by 

 wedges. Most of the heads are made of a rather soft 

 limestone, but where the people obtain it we do not 

 know, for there is no stone of any kind near the coast. 

 The simplest type is merely a round water-worn pebble 

 with a hole bored through it. More commonly they are 

 worked and the labour of producing them must have 

 been considerable. Some are flat discs with sharp cutting 

 edges or blunt and roughly milled edges, and some are 

 cut into the form of five or six or more pointed stars ; 

 rarely they are triangular. Others again are round or 

 oval and are cut into more or less deep teeth, or they 

 have small bosses left projecting here and there, but no 

 two of them are exactly ahke. The weight of the club 

 head is usually two or three pounds. The most savage- 

 looking club we saw was simply a rough lump of coral, 

 not trimmed in any way. It was pierced and mounted 

 on a finely carved shaft of extremely heavy wood, and 

 the whole thing must have weighed fifteen or twenty 

 pounds. 



Not a little credit is due to the Papuans for their 



