114. CLUB, COOK ISLANDS akatara wood 224 cm. long Provenance Christie's, Paris, 6 December 2005, lot 60 Nagel, Stuttgart, 7 December 2023, lot 819 Steven Hooper (in Power and Prestige: The Art of Clubs in Oceania, Venice, 2021, p.158) notes that in the opinion of the New Zealand scholar, Te Rangi Hiroa, who did extensive research in the Cook Islands, the neat workmanship and the fine dark polish of Cook Islands scallop-edged pole-clubs made them the most attractive in Polynesia. There is some uncertainty about the precise islands from which the various types of akatara originate. Hiroa attributed the scallop-edged clubs to Rarotonga but there is no collection data for any of the early clubs known. Hooper in discussing the evidence opts for a central Cook Islands origin.