Fine Maori Hand Club, New Zealand

Fine Maori Hand Club, New Zealand
mere pounamu
Nephrite jade (pounamu)
Length 13in (33cm)

Provenance
H. Sidney Burney Gallery, C.B.E., London
Harry G. Beasley Collection, London/Bicester (Beasley Collection label no. 2179 on spatulate end)
Christie's, London, 3-4 July 1990, Lot 125
Hélène and Philippe Leloup, Paris
American Private Collection, acquired from the above in 1990

Literature
Beasley catalogue, 8 June 1928 (not illustrated), "N. Zealand. A light coloured Greenstone Mere. 13 1/8in long. Has three rather wide grooves on the Reke and in addition to the hole, the commencement of a second higher up. Bt. Sidney Burney."

As noted by Terrence Barrow, "as a general rule, the rangatira [Maori chief] carried both a short and a long club. The short clubs of the Maori, which are grouped under the generic term patu poto, were made in several shapes from wood, bone, and stone (including greenstone). They were carried thrust into the girdle of the kilt or into a special war-belt.

The common characteristic of short clubs is a flat broad blade with rounded end made sharp enough to split the skull of a man, or to cause deadly injuries to the neck or ribs by thrusting blows." (The Decorative Arts of the New Zealand Maori, Charles E. Tuttle Co., Japan, 1964, p. 38)

This fine mere pounamu displays the handsome natural variation of the pounamu jade, indigenous to and exclusively found in New Zealand; the handle pierced through at the butt for fiber attachment; another unfinished piercing on one side.