Oceanian Arms in Star Wars?  

Author: Anna Biró
Photos: Marcell Szász

Every year on May 4th, the world celebrates international Star Wars Day. In honour of this year’s event, we are presenting, as part of our Artefact of the Month series, a set of Oceanian weapons with a surprising connection to the famed space epic. 

The two totokia seen here come from the Fiji Islands. Though often referred to as ‘pineapple maces,’ in reality this is a mistranslation: the weapon’s form mimics not a pineapple, but the sectioned fruithead of the screwpine, or Pandanus tree. Traditionally, the totokia was used for headhunting, its weight distribution and spiky protrusions enabling its wielder to deal heavy blows to the skulls of his enemies. Because only men of high rank could own one, the totokia doubled as a status symbol, passed down from generation to generation. Despite this, one encounters the weapon relatively frequently in museums. In The Mandalorian, the headhunter Boba Fett carries a gaderffii, a weapon based on the totokia design, whose production for his use served as a sort of rite of initiation among Tatooine’s Tusken ‘sand people’. 

One of the pair shown here, whose provenance has yet to be established, is a transfer from the Reformed College of Debrecen. The other made its way to Europe on the Panther, an Austro-Hungarian warship that cruised the region of Asia and the Pacific in 1904 and 1905. The latter piece was purchased based on the museum’s prior instructions as part of a small collection from a Sydney company dealing in ‘exotic’ objects. 

The third piece is a chief’s warclub from the estate of Ferenc Hopp, which—though collected in New Zealand—is of a form typically associated with the region of Samoa. The name, tala valu, refers to the triangular protrusions, or teeth, that jut from its sides. Over time, the tala valu—originally a deadly weapon—came to serve as a ritual object and expression of identity. Samoans around the turn of the 20th century, for example, enjoyed being photographed with it, while today, it features in both the name, and emblem of the American Samoan rugby team. A tala valu of traditional form can be seen in episode four of Star Wars: Andor, where Coruscant antiquities dealer Luthen Rael presents it to a shop customer as the ‘cudgel of a Utapaun monk’.