totokia
Illustration — Totokia from the collection at the Bedford Museum • Illustration — Fijian warrior holding a totokia The totokia (also pineapple club or beaked battle hammer) is a type of club or battlehammer from Fiji. The totokia was called the "pineapple club" because of the spiked ball behind the weapon's beak. The name is a misnomer; the shape actually is modeled after that of the fruit of the pandanus.
totokia
Simon Speed · Public domain
- Field
- club
- Region
- Fiji
In this article
Overview
The spike ("beak") and head of the weapon were used to puncture the skull of the enemy and crush the head. In addition to its functional use as a weapon of war, totokia were also status symbols. Totokia are held in the collections of several museums, including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the Auckland Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Cambridge, the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. African and oceanic art expert Bruno Claessens writes that the weapons carried by the Tusken Raiders of Tatooine in George Lucas' Star Wars were inspired by the totokia.
It is associated with Fiji.
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Fiji
Country
totokia is associated with Fiji.
Country
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
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