Samoan Material Culture
The Ear-Shaped, Or Mushroom Club
The Ear-Shaped, Or Mushroom Club
Structural pattern. The clubs shown in Plate LII, A, 4-6 are termed fa'alautalinga (fa'a, shaped like; lautalinga, a toadstool, or the lobe of the ear). Churchill has accepted the toadstool meaning of lautalinga and hence termed the type mushroom clubs. Looking at the matter from the point of view of the craftsman's structural pattern and the object to which he compared it, the toadstool is much less likely to form the name motive than the lobe of the ear. The toadstool I never saw or heard of during my sojourn in Samoa, but the ear is always present and frequently referred to. The craftsman in adzing out his structural pattern shaped it like two ears placed together, as the club was bilateral, and with the lobes forming the curve to the external angles.
Three clubs, selected from the eight weapons in Bishop Museum (Pl. LII, A, 4-6) show the varieties. (See fig. 314.) The length of the head is from the level of the external angles or lobes to the distal end. The proximal thickness is also taken from this point.
Figure 314.—Types of ear shaped clubs (fa'alautalinga):
b | c | d | |
---|---|---|---|
Length | 24. | 26.5 | 22.5 |
Head length | 3.4 | 6.4 | 4.4 |
Head width | 6.3 | 10.75 | 11.75 |
Head prox. thickness | 1.3 | 1.6 | 2. |
Head distal thickness | 1.8 | 1.8 | 2.4 |
Grip, transverse diameter | 1.4 | 1.6 | 1.45 |
Grip, vertical diameter | 1.2 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
Handle end, transverse | 2.1 | 2.5 | 1.9 |
Handle end, vertical | 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 |
Edge-Partington (10, vol. 2, p. 41, No. 2) figures a club 46 inches long in the Pitt-Rivers Museum. (See figure 314, a). This aberrant form shows an ear-shaped head with the lateral curves prolonged proximally to form a blade somewhat like a coconut stalk club. The ear-shaped club is a specialized short club which is more likely to have sprung from a long type of club than to have commenced short. The origin of the type from a long club seems further supported by the fact that it is made from a split plank and not from a round sapling or bough like the knobbed clubs and the maces.
All the clubs are carved on the head and the lateral expansions from the shaft.