MASSUE Mukmuk Gazelle Peninsula, eastern New Britain 19th century

<meta charset="UTF-8" />MUKMUK MASSUE
Gazelle Peninsula, eastern New Britain
19th century
Wood
Length: 113; W.: 9 cm

Monoxyl wooden brain teaser with a shiny patina, with a cylindrical handle, curved on the middle part and carved, on each of its ends, with a notch ending in a tapered point.

"In New Guinea, the circumstances of the use of clubs are very specific.
During wars, whatever the forms they could take – ambush in a canoe as in the marshes of the lowlands, confrontation in open and dedicated places, surprise attacks on villages leading to their complete destruction –, the combatants
exclusively used throwing weapons such as assegais, javelins or stones
while bows and arrows were and still are intended for hunting. Nowadays, wooden clubs are still reserved for conflicts between inhabitants of the same village or between allied villages - the aim of these clashes not being, a priori, to kill or shed blood but to injure the adversary in order to neutralize him. They are used by both men and women, although, in the Sepik at least, they are considered to be the women's weapon par excellence (fig. 86).
[…] Objects of authority, they allow the place of each group of descent to be defended by force. Unlike the shields used on the battlefield, they do not carry a message allowing each fighter to be identified.
In a village, they are known to all and are often associated, through their history, with a powerful and remarkable ancestor. For this reason, they are kept either in special enclosures in the men's houses (Wassman cited in Obrist, 1979-1985), or near the central pillar near the large spears and ancestral figures gathered in the house of a clan chief, each man of the clan being able to come and present them, when necessary, offerings."

Comments collected in the exhibition catalogue Power and Prestige, Art of Pacific Clubs, edited by Steven Hooper, Skira, Musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, 8-25 Sept. 2022, pp. 250-251.

Illustrative photograph from the book Three Years in the South, by Richard Parkinson, published in 1907.

On Jacques Lebras base

Text and photos © FCP CORIDON

Ref: LP. :5297

Ref: ADPHPRSUVY