Lot 250

Southwest Solomon Islands, Rennell island (Mugava in native language), a staff, early to mid-20th century, handcarved from a single piece of dark wood, this type of refined Polynesian form Club has an elegant tapered shape with crocodiles in relief, from the bottom of the handle to the top of the sixteen radial flanges, important insignia for the hereditary chiefs who trace their genealogy from the first Polynesian settlers of the island, such staffs also assisted chiefs in communicating with their ancestral forebears, when invoking the atua (ancestral gods), - L. 72 cm.-