A tribal war club

PNG Tribes

A couple of months ago we covered the 1 Kina coin from Papua New Guinea (PNG). In sharing that piece on social media, Ian gave some extra information. He lived in PNG in the 1970s and I didn’t want to lose it, so thought I’d take the opportunity to weave it into a new post, on a new coin, and this is it.

The Island of New Guinea is home to over 900 tribes. The island itself is politically split in half – the west half is known as “West Papua”, a province of Indonesia, although many would like independence. The east half of the island is the independent country of Papua New Guinea.

Many of the indigenous tribes have long had contact with outsiders, and tourism is well organised. Some are still largely isolated. While looking up information for this post, I found so many amazing and unique tribes, including:

• the Skeleton Tribe.
• the Insect Hunters of the Narku Tribe
• the Crocodile Men of the Sepik tribes
• the Graiku Tribe of Bogo village

and so many more.

(The Skeleton Tribe, from TribesOfPapuaNewGuinea.com).

In our correspondence, Ian noted: “In the highlands the tribes will have a sort of communal wealth, rather than individuals having money, and when a man loves a woman, and they want to get married, there’s a ‘bride price’ which the village pays, and the ceremonies often involve elaborate costuming and dancing through the place with long poles decorated in coins and paper money – loads and loads of paper notes pierced and affixed to the very long poles sticking up and being jiggled about in the dancing. At other times they’ll bury the money to keep it safe, sometimes forgetting where it’s buried (like squirrels do with their nuts).”

It’s worth adding, that I did look up information on the bride price custom. The majority of articles I found online question the practise, sharing stories of domestic violence.

Obverse

Numista describes the obverse as “Crowned monogram with hole dividing date”. In the earlier post on the King Charles Coronation Medallion, I discovered that, from Project Gutenberg: “A Monogram is a combination of two or more letters, in which one letter forms part of another and cannot be separated from the whole. A Cypher is merely an interlacing or placing together of two or more letters, being in no way dependent for their parts on other of the letters.” So, this would be a cypher. But whose?

GRI stands for “Georgius Rex Imperator“, meaning “George King Emperor”. Coins of both George V and George VI were issued in Papua New Guinea bearing “GRI” under Queen Victoria’s Diamond Crown. The year confirms this particular coin was issued under George VI, who ruled from 1936 – 1952. The coins in this series were issued from 1935 (under George V) through to 1945. These included the 1 penny, 3 and 6 pence, and 1 shilling (12 pence). There were only very minor variations in design between the George V and George VI issues (particularly the style of the GRI cypher):

Reverse

The reverse features “Design reminiscent of the discoidal, flower-like carved stone heads of war clubs. Lettering around.”

There are many different styles of New Guinea War Club. With so many tribes, this is probably not surprising. They vary in style and shape depending on the region/tribe they come from.

The type of club depicted on the coin appears to be a top-down view of a Stone-headed club. These clubs are the most common type of club found in Papua New Guinea They come from throughout much of the country. Stone headed clubs are particularly popular with the New Guinea Highlanders.

(Stone-headed club, from New-Guinea-Tribal-Arts.com).

On the previously posted 1 Kina coin, Ian noted that the hole in the coin is so they can string a load of them together. That would also be possible with today’s coin, as it also has a hole. Indeed, all of the coins issued under George V and VI had holes. When decimal coins were issued under Queen Elizabeth II from 1975, only the highest denomination 1 Kina coins had a hole.

What is your favourite coin with a hole? OR, what is your favourite tribal / indigenous design on a coin? Let us know below!