78 CLUB TYPES OF NUCLEAR POLYNESIA. 
for the name is properly applicable only to the former. In their gen- 
eral resemblance it is to be noted that each has a shaft relatively short, 
a sharply distinct blade of considerable height between edges, and a 
clearly cut median angle along the length, a member of the extreme 
head arising inacusp. They differ in the cusp, which in one type, the 
true nifo‘ott, is retroverted and in the other is blunt; and they differ in 
that the type with retroverted cusp carries serration, while the other is 
of plain and blunt edges. Kramer’s piece 216 } has serration on both 
edges, quite as if the retroverted cusp had been a fanciful development 
upon the common talavalu club, but in all other specimens the edge 
which carries the cusp is blunt and plain. 
Kramer discusses the nzfo‘ots name. Generally, in connection with 
the unilateral form, he says in discussing the theme under the designa- 
tion talavalu, yet also sometimes with the bilateral form, there is 
noticed on the smooth upper side a hook which serves the purpose of 
dragging out from the throng an enemy who has fallen in conflict in 
order to haggle his head off with the saw-teeth and the assistance of 
a stone axe. Such trophy heads have played a large part in Samoan 
warfare, even as recently as the war of the Tanumafili succession in 
1899, when two officers of the United States Navy fell in battle and 
lost their heads. This hook is provided in the new bush-knives which 
the industry of the white men has supplied and has the awe-inspiring 
name of nzfoott or tooth of death; yet on closer examination this 
resolves itself into nzfo‘otz or goat’s horn, with which in its modern form 
it has considerable likeness. 
Upon the two items of the explanation of the name and the modern 
steel knife I find myself under the necessity of traversing Kramer’s 
decision. ‘The Samoan uses ofz in the death sense only in reference to 
mankind; for animals he employs mate. Nevertheless, the composite 
word n1fo-ot1, tooth-death, would signify to the Samoan the tooth which 
dies rather than the tooth which kills; it is essentially intransitive 
rather than transitive, as would be requisite to carry such an implica- 
tion as we see in the tooth of death. Accordingly we lay this inter- 
pretation aside and adopt the slightly variant form nzfo-‘otiz. Kramer 
interprets this as goat’s horn and quite accurately as a mere matter of 
linguistics. But the goat was made known to Samoa by its early mis- 
sionaries, and after its first introduction acquired so scant a hold in the 
islands that I can not now recall having seen in many years a single 
specimen. ‘There is reason for this in the appetite of the Samoans: 
the flesh of the sheep is singularly repugnant to them; that of the goat 
must be even more disgusting. Furthermore, this interpretation of 
the name implies either that this type of club is very modern or, if 
ancient, that it went nameless until Samoans caught a passing glimpse 
of a domestic animal which they did not care to adopt into their own 
domesticity. Adopting the form mzfo-‘oti, I find its derivation from 
