Fighting clubs

This group of fighting clubs from the Rockhampton district, made in the late colonial period, is truly outstanding, both for its beauty and its rarity: the intact survival of such a large collection of these exceptional objects is extremely rare. The diverse shapes of the carved and incised heads, seen in these ten clubs, is particularly notable, as opposed to the more commonly seen bulbous-headed fighting clubs. Each artefact is exquisite: the neck of each has been carefully scraped with a sharp shell to create striations along the club, which gives an unexpected elegance to these powerful objects used for war.