Wooden Hand-Clubs, Patu The patu was a short teardrop-shaped hand-club, and was in many ways the definitive one-handed weapon of the Maori warrior. During the later 18th and earlier 19th century, many men wore such clubs tucked into their belts every day. Many of the greatest taonga (ancestral treasures) of the various Maori iwi (clans) are renowned patu with long and distinguished histories in battle. Particularly mana (powerful) ones were held in such veneration that a captured warrior doomed to be executed would often ask his captors to kill him with his own weapon, so that his own death might further add to its glory; his last wish fulfilled, the captors would then return his club to his family. Patu were manufactured in hardwood, whalebone and stone, but those dealt with here are wooden.
