NOTE ON FIJIAN CLUBS ORNAMENTED WITH 
MAORI PATTERNS. 
By R. H. Walcott, F.G.S., Curator of the Geological and 
Ethnological Collections. 
(Plate VIII.) 
During a visit to the Museum/Professor R. B. Dixon, of the 
Anthropological Department of the Harvard University, was par- 
ticularly interested in a Fijian club bearing an incised design of 
distinctly Maori origin. Professor Dixon had previously seen 
elsewhere two other specimens ornamented with a similar type of 
design, and as, apparently, no record had been made of such an 
interesting instance of borrowed art, it is well that the Museum 
should publish a description of the specimen in its collection. 
I was fortunate enough, on mentioning the subject to Mr. W. H. 
Schmidt, of the Australian Metal Company, Melbourne, to find 
that he had in his private collection another example of a club 
decorated in a similar manner, which he kindly offered to lend for 
description. 
The Museum specimen, Reg. No. 14,870 (Fig. 1), is, apart from 
its ornamentation, an ordinary Fijian club of the cylindrical 
type. Its total length is 3 feet 7§ inches, with an approximate 
diameter of If inches for 23 inches of its length from the 
end of the handle. It then gradually increases in diameter to the 
termination of the head, where it attains a maximum of If inches. 
The end of the handle is hollowed out to a depth of a quarter 
of an inch, a feature not uncommon in Fijian clubs. 
The incised design on the handle extends from the extreme 
end for Ilf inches without a break, and from its termination to the 
end of the head, seven bands, about three-quarters of an inch wide, 
of the. same incised design are unequally spaced. 
The specimen was acquired from Mr. W. Simmonds, of Melbourne, 
in March, 1908, by whom I have been informed that it was collected 
by himself some thirty or more years before. Mr. Simmonds, who 
made a number of visits to Fiji, was unfortunately unable to recollect 
under w hat circumstances he obtained the club, or from which 
island of the group. 
The sty le of ornamentation is common in Maori carvings, and 
consists, as may be. seen from Fig. 2, which is a reproduction of 
a rubbing, of a series of transverse parallel bands each of four 
lines, alternating with single lines of diamond-shaped points. The 
bands of parallel lines do not continue unbroken round the whole 
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