The Club.
The simplest of all offensive weapons is necessarily the Club. At first, this was but a simple stick, such as any savage might form from a branch of a tree by knocking off the small boughs with a stone or another stick. Such clubs are still used in Australia, and I have several in my collection.
Then the inventive genius of man improved their destructive power by various means. The most obvious plan was to add to the force of its blow by simply making one end much thicker and heavier than the other. This is done in the “Knob-kerry” of Southern Africa, and it is worthy of remark that in Fiji a weapon exists so exactly like the short knob-kerry of Africa, that an inexperienced eye would scarcely be able to distinguish between them.
The next plan was to arm the enlarged head with projecting pieces or spikes, sometimes cut out of the solid wood, and sometimes artificially inserted. The “Shillelagh” of Ireland is a simple example of this kind of club. One of the best and most elaborate examples of this sort of weapon is the “Pine-apple” Club of Fiji, a figure of which may be seen in the illustration, drawn from a specimen in my collection.
It is made in the most ingenious manner from a tree which is trained for the purpose. There are certain trees belonging to the palm tribe which possess “aërial” roots, i.e. subsidiary roots, which surround the trunk at some distance from the ground, and assist in supporting it. Some trees have no central root, and are entirely upborne by the aërial roots, while others have both.
One of these latter is selected, and when it is very young is bent over and fastened to the ground almost at right angles, as shown in the illustration. When it has grown to a sufficient age it is cut to the requisite length, the central root is sharpened to a point, and the aërial roots are also cut down in such a way that they radiate very much like the projections on a pine-apple. This is really an ingenious weapon, for if the long and sharpened end should miss its aim, the projections would be tolerably sure to inflict painful if not immediately dangerous injuries.
As the pine-apple is so well known, I have given in the opposite side of the illustration a figure of the Durian, a large Bornean fruit, which is covered with projections almost identical in appearance with those of the pine-apple club, and almost equally hard and heavy.
Perhaps some of my readers may have heard of the grand Italian game of Pallone, the “game of giants,” as it has been called. The ball, which is a large and rather heavy one, weighing more than twice as much as a cricket-ball, is struck with a wooden gauntlet reaching nearly half-way up the fore-arm. The original gauntlet was cut entirely out of the solid wood, and exactly resembled the exterior of the Durian. The modern gauntlet, however, has the spikes fixed separately into a wooden frame, so that they can be replaced if broken in the course of the game. The principle, however, is identical in all three cases. The technical name of this gauntlet is Bracciale.
The next improvement was to add still further to the destructive powers of the club by arming it with stones, so as to make it harder and heavier. Sometimes a stone is perforated, and the end of the club forced into it. Sometimes the stone is lashed to the club, and sometimes a hole is bored in the club, and the stone driven into it. This kind of club, made of a sort of rosewood, may be found among some of the tribes inhabiting the district of the Essequibo.