102 - Rare large ʻakatara club

Rare large ʻakatara club Casuarina wood with a dark brown, glossy patina; shows signs of use and age. Cook Islands, traditionally attributed to Rarotonga. Before 1845, according to provenance. Length: 238 cm Provenance: – Collection of Captain John Walter Roberts (1792–1845), London; subsequently passed down through the family. – Christie’s, London, June 23, 1992, lot 174. – Kevin Conru, London, acquired at that auction. – Collection of Charles-Édouard Duflon (1967–2021), Geneva, acquired from Kevin Conru around 1993. – European private collection, acquired from Charles-Édouard Duflon in 2014; subsequently passed down through the family. Sighted by the Bounty in 1789 and first visited in 1814, Rarotonga welcomed the missionary John Williams in 1823; the island’s conversion followed within a few years, and by 1830 whaling ships and schooners were calling there. It was during these decades of initial contact that most of the known ʻakatara made their way to England, as the missionaries destroyed the images of the gods but spared the weapons. Carved from the heartwood of the Casuarina tree, the taiki, the ʻakatara was used in combat before becoming, at the time of first contact, a weapon of prestige linked to the mana of its bearer. Shaped with a stone adze, coral, and a shark-skin rasp, it attests to the refinement of the Cook Islands’ sculptors. The simplicity of the long handle highlights the blade’s form, whose successive notches create a powerful and slender silhouette. At its base, four motifs resembling eyes introduce a subtle figurative element; the chevron patterns on the heel complete this understated ornamentation. This mace belonged to Captain John Walter Roberts (1792–1845), a Royal Navy officer and nephew of Admiral Sir John Gore. Preserved by his descendants until 1992, it thus arrived in Europe in the first half of the 19th century, at the very time when the Cook Islands were opening up to the world. Exhibition: Bern, Galerie Duflon & Racz, A Bernese Named Wäber. Painter and Draftsman of Captain James Cook’s Third Voyage, October 3–18, 2008. Bibliography: Kevin Conru, *Conru Primitive Art*, London, 1995, pp. 43–44. Milène C. Rossi, A Man from Bern Named Wäber. Johann Wäber – John Webber. Painter and Draftsman of Captain James Cook’s Third Voyage, Geneva, Galerie Témoin / Éditions D – F. Dawance, 2008, p. 82. General Bibliography: Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter H. Buck), *Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands*, Honolulu, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Bulletin 179, 1944.