The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Red-brown with orange undertones wood ball-headed club with an arcing rectangular body that wraps like jaws around a sphere at the upper end and serrates on the inner lower edge before narrowing to a right triangle point, the slanted edge marked with finer serrations. The shaft of the club is finely carved with animals and spirit beings with cross-hatched markings.

Ball-Headed War Club

late 1700s–early 1800s

Native North America, Northeastern Woodlands, Great Lakes, Anishinaabe

wood (maple?)
Overall: 58.6 x 7.8 x 13.1 cm (23 1/16 x 3 1/16 x 5 3/16 in.)
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1991.21
Location: Not on view

Description

The ball at the striking end of this club is clenched in an abstract, jawlike form that likely refers to a protector animal who endowed the owner with power. Incised on the shaft is a rich record of doodemag (singular, doodem, “totem”)—animals representing other-than-human progenitors from which Anishinaabe peoples trace their descent. (The Anishinaabeg, a group of related Great Lakes nations, include the Odawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and others.) Included is an antlered creature, perhaps a caribou, along with mammals, birds, and powerful spirit beings: the thunderbird, its wings outstretched, and perhaps the long-tailed underwater panther. When this example was made, clubs had become symbols of status and earlier ways of life, having been replaced as favored weapons by metal tomahawks and European firearms. Today, clubs are part of powwow regalia.
  • Richard Pohrt; reportedly from a collection in Kitchener, Ontario
  • Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 342
  • {{cite web|title=Ball-Headed War Club|url=false|author=|year=late 1700s–early 1800s|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1991.21