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Originally published in the Historic Nantucket, Vol 51, no. 1 (Winter 2002), p. 10-11

The South Seas Room
by Joseph Theroux

THE NANTUCKET WHALERS WHO ROAMED THE South Seas frequently put in to such places as Apia and Levuka and Honiara and Lahaina to refill their watercasks and fill their holds with pork and limes. They also took aboard island artifacts, prized for their novelty, and packed them into sea chests as treasured souvenirs. Some were gifts; others were bartered from the islanders for much-desired iron, often in the form of ship's nails from the carpenter's bin.

The Nantucket Atheneum Museum was founded by local sea captains to house the "curiosities" assembled over the years on their voyages. Just as their fellow captains in Salem had done with the East India Marine Society (now the Peabody Essex Museum) in 1799, they realized that - taken together - it represented a substantial exhibit describing the material culture of foreign peoples. The first site was at the corner of Federal and India Streets, and it remained on display for some seventy years. But eventually the collection grew too large and in 1905 it was donated to the Nantucket Historical Association, which had come into existence in 1894.

The South Seas collection itself - war clubs, carvings, tools, decorative ornaments - became part of the Whaling Museum. In the last hundred years, valuable donations from Nantucketers such as George Grant (1870-1942), Mary Starbuck (1856-1938), and George Rule (1781-1859); and summer residents Austin Strong (1881-1952) and Edward F. Sanderson (1874-1955) enriched the collection. Grant became the first curator of the Whaling Museum, while Starbuck, writer and daughter of a whaleman, was the NHA's first recording secretary. In 2000, curators Aimee Newell and Niles Parker, with technical assistance from Pacific expert Norman Hurst, (of the Hurst Gallery in Cambridge), redesigned the South Seas Room.

The collection of war clubs rivals many of those in major museums. They come from Fiji, Samoa, the Solomons, the Austral Islands, New Caledonia, the Marquesas, and New Britain. As elegantly carved as they are lethal, they were meticulously shaped and hewn from ironwood with basalt adzes and chisels. For final polishing, the islanders used a sandpaper made from shark skin. They were then hand-rubbed to a high gloss and hue that strongly resembles the coppery skin of the Polynesians themselves.

The South Seas Room displays a dozen clubs that are particularly fine:

New Caledonian bird's-head club - a go-poropua-ra-mam; it is a straight shaft that is topped by a sharp, beak-shaped blade.

• New Caledonian mushroom-head club - a go-maace; the name refers to the phallic-shaped ("mushroom" in polite parlance) head, symbolizing strength and virility, Marquesas idol club - decorated with delicately carved faces and figures of war gods. [Edward F. Sanderson Collection]
• San Cristobal parrying shield - a gracefully carved weapon topped with a wing-shaped club; the base of the shaft becomes a human figure; called a roroma- raugi, it is from the San Cristobal area of the Solomons.
• New Britain club - a long shaft with a blade-shaped club, the handle is wrapped with a cane binding.
  Samoanfa'alaufa'i- toothed club made of Samoan toa (ironwood, Casuarina). [Edward F. Sanderson Collection]
• Samoan amuamu - ironwood club, the business end made up of square ridges. [Edward F. Sanderson Collection]
• Samoan uatogi - ironwood club; the business end is a tapering blade, so it may have developed from a paddle club; uatogi is the generic term for Samoan war club, from the root word togi, "to throw." [Edward F. Sanderson Collection]
• Fiji kiakavo - two classic Fijian spurred clubs, sometimes called a"gun- stock club." The Fijians had a name for each part of this club: grip: lake-na; proximal butt end: teki lake; distal butt end: ulu-na; large horn: meto; raised ridge: tere; sides of head or "cheeks": balu-na; carved lines along the head: tavatava. [Edward F. Sanderson Collection]
• Fiji tree-root club - called vunikau or mada, made of the root of the moivi tree; the roots and tendrils are cut off at the base, leaving a solid mass. It was polished but left in its natural irregular state. Also called moivi, it was used in war dances.
• Fiji mace club - called a bowai, it is devoid of ornament, shaped very much like a stout baseball bat.

Other items on display show the variety of the collection: a bow and arrow set from the San Cristobal area of the Solomon Islands; a coconut scraper from Pohnpei, and a tackle box from Chuuk (formerly Truk) in Micronesia; an elaborately carved ceremonial adze from the Cook Islands; and a fishing lure from Kiribati (formerly the Gilberts).

The shell pendant that Mary Starbuck donated is almost surely from a Samoan tuiga, the ceremonial headdress worn by the taupou, or village virgin. The miniature Samoan-style kava bowl was carved by George Grant, possibly on one of his whaling voyages. The shark-toothed sword and spears from Kiribati are among the best specimens anywhere. The beautifully detailed model of a Maori war canoe (waka) was a gift of George Rule. The carved Austral Island paddles show delicate female figures dancing on the pommels.

More gems in the collection are presently housed at the Bartholomew Gosnold Center, and slated for future display. They include:

• Robert Louis Stevenson's Funeral Mat - an 'ie toga, or Samoan fine mat, displayed in December 1894, at the novelist's home at Vailima, Samoa; made of pandanus leaf and ornamented with dyed parrot feathers. Linguistically, the name suggests that the pattern originated in Tonga. [Austin Strong Collection]
  
• Marquesan Pillow - a closed oblong tube, tapering to a slightly narrower midpoint; the pandanus is woven in a variant herringbone pattern; collected by Stevenson on his Casco voyage. He was at Nuku Hiva and Hiva-Oa from July 20 until September 4,1888. [Austin Strong Collection]
• Samoan Nifo 'Oti Knife - Samoan-made from a British factory-produced machete or cane knife (its original identifying tag reads, incorrectly, "Sugar Cane Knife"); based on the design of an ancient wooden war club, it has a hook, welded onto the tip of the blade, called a nifo 'oti or "death tooth." Nowadays these knives are ceremonial, used only in dances, but in Stevenson's time they were swung about in battle, when the heads of enemy warriors were taken as trophies. [Austin Strong Collection]
  
• Hawaiian Lei Niho Palaoa - a necklace composed of carved whalebone and woven human hair, an adornment of royalty. (The similarity of Polynesian languages is seen here in the words for "tooth": nifo in Samoan, niho in Hawaiian.)
  
• Hawaiian Kahili - a pair of royal standards (or wands) once belonging to Princess Ruth Keelikolani (1826-83); feather ornaments on wooden staffs (mounted in a frame surmounting a photograph of Princess Ruth, with attendants holding the kahilis).
  
• New Ireland Masks - decorative masks used in ceremonial dances; made of feathers, bone, fiber, and shells. (New Ireland and New Britain are part of the Bismarck Archipelago of the Solomon Islands.)

Other clubs in the Gosnold Center include a Fijian totokia or "pineapple club," a dance club from the Santa Cruz Islands, a Marquesas u'u or Janus-faced club, and a Samoan throwing club.

The South Seas Collection - an exhibit of artistry and warfare - represents the material culture of the Pacific found by Nantucket whalemen years ago. Nantucketers, themselves capable of producing articles of elegance and simplicity (see any island-forged harpoon or elegant Nantucket lightship basket), were quick to appreciate the same virtues in a hand-tooled war club or finely woven pandanus mat.

The whalemen saw islands that boasted lush and lovely tropical views; but beneath the lagoons were jagged, hidden reefs that were sometimes fatal to their ships. A visit to the South Seas Room dramatically evokes this tropical duality of beauty and danger.