clubs that are not boring

We had the privilege of holding one in hand. And it’s amazing the impression of power given off by these sticks, cut from a very compact wood, extremely profiled and perfectly balanced. Quai Branly in Paris, the museum of primitive arts has constituted in the windows of its mezzanine a real typology of the clubs of the Pacific. Nearly 140 pieces from the shores of Australia to easter island, from Hawaii to Wellington. Because each archipelago, almost each island, seems to have had its own style when it comes to sceptres.

Such objects are indeed more than common clubs or truncheons that spurt the blood of game, the enemy or any living sacrificed. It is not certain that those we admire here have broken many heads. These are weapons of course, but above all instruments of power and pageantry. All of them, in their very diverse and always ingenious way, speak of the prestige of the chief, the clan’s first intercessor with the gods. Especially during dances and ceremonies