Club patu
meremere
Place: New Zealand
Category: War
wood, New Zealand, l. 37 cm, w. 10 cm, Inv. Oz 275
Humphrey No. 336: ‘A patapatoo or War Bludgeon used by the Warriors of New Zealand.’
Flat club made of dark brown wood. Best (1924, II: 267) also named this club mere rakau or patu rakau.
This club is also made of wood, a most untypical material for this form. Best mentioned that the Maori disliked wooden clubs and preferred those made of stone or bone: ‘Curiously enough the form of the patu onewa does not appear to have appealed to the Maori in wood. I have not seen an old specimen of pre-European days’ (Best 1924, 11: 267). Markus Schindlbeck
Source
Best, Elsdon, The Maori, 2 vols, Wellington, 1924.