Spear point, Malekula Island, Vanuatu Archipelago Wood,... Lot 44

Spear point, Malekula Island, Vanuatu Archipelago Wood, vegetable fibre H. 45,5 cm Malekula Island top spear, Vanuatu H. 17i 15/16 in Provenance: - M. Clech, colonial agent in Oceania, killed in 1878 at Bouloupari during the Canaque insurrection. In his book Ethnographische materialen aus den Neuen Hebriden und den Banks-Inseln published in 1923 after his stay in the New Hebrides between 1910 and 1912, Félix Speiser does not make a formal distinction between war and hunting spears, of which he specifies that at that time "it is already quite difficult to obtain spears" (p. 205, first edition) Illustrations 18 and 20 of plate 49 of his study show the same type of double bearded face.