USNM Number

Object Name

Object Type

Culture/People

Collector

Accession Date

Donor

Country

State

Accession Number

Notes

E231011: Sword “Nootka, West Coast Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Large piece of whales bone formed into a club-sword ornamented with four circular carvings of human faces and with a human face in profile at end of handle.” (Catalog card)Comment from Graduate Student Research Paper, "A Report on Accession #42610 of the National Museum of Natural History", written by Athena Hsieh in April 2012, for the class "Anthropology in the Museum" taught by NMNH Curator, Dr. J. Daniel Rogers for the George Washington University. Approved for inclusion into notes by Dr. Igor Krupnik. Dr. Krupnik and NMNH has not verified the contents of the comment below, and suggests future researchers verify the remarks before citing Ms. Hsieh. The complete paper is attached to the accession record of this object in EMu. "Labeled in the ledger books as a “whales-fin club,” it is likely that the club is carved from killer whale bone. There is no documentation in the Smithsonian's Annual Report that shows that Swanton came into contact with tribes besides the Tlingit and Haida; hence, the Nootka description is suspicious. The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture has a collection of eighteen whale bone clubs and fragments from different Northwest coast tribes, including the Nootka (4). This sword does not look similar to any in the Burke's collections, and the two Nootka swords at the Burke also share few similarities. Another Nootka sword in the Brooklyn Museum collection (5) clearly demonstrates that these whale's bone clubs were prevalent in many Northwest coast tribes, and that they all vary in design. It is difficult to determine what the human faces, two on each side, symbolize without any cultural context, and without proper documentation or provenance, it is not possible to attribute one of these clubs to any particular tribe. This club may uniquely highlight the power of trade in the exchange of ideas between groups. In appearance, it is very similar to a Banks Patu, an object that was once also in the collection at NMNH. The Banks Patu one of a series of forty brass clubs cast from an original basalt club that Joseph Banks acquired in New Zealand during James Cook's first expedition, between 1768 and 1771 (6). Banks had originally intended to use these reproductions as trade items on a second expedition led by Cook, but did not go as originally planned. However, it is thought that Banks gave some of his replicas to a commander on Cook's ship to use as trade items or to sell (Kaeppler 2005, 152). Cook's ships stopped at a number of locations in the Pacific Northwest, including Nootka Sound. There are at least two eighteenth-century first-hand accounts by Colnett and Meares, two fur traders in the region, of seeing Banks patus with the Tsimshian tribe (Burgess lecture). By the time Swanton was conducting his field research in the region, one century had already passed since the Banks Patu was first introduced to the Northwest coast. This would have been ample time for the concept of the patu to percolate and let tribes and individuals create their own versions of the club. Citations: Kaeppler, Adrienne L. 2005. “Two Polynesian repatriation enigmas at the Smithsonian Institution.” Journal of Museum Ethnography 17: 152-162. (4)- Link to Website: http://collections.burkemuseum.org/ethnology/advanced.php?archives=0&lc=nwc&NAME=club&CULTURE_OF_ORIGIN=&MAKER_OR_ARTIST=&MATERIALS=bone&TECHNIQUES=&SUBJECT=&SOURCE=&x=17&y=12 (5)- Link to Website: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/132814/Bone_Club_Chituut# (6)- Burgess, Laurie. March 21, 2012. Lecture for Anthropology in the Museum (ANTH 6201.10). The George Washington University. "