79. KANAK CEREMONIAL AXE, NEW CALEDONIA o kono / boulaibi bounbout wood, stone, shells, coconut, flying fox fur fibre 65 cm. long The "hache ostensoir" or "monstrance axe", so-named due to its similarity to the monstrance or ostensorium used in Catholic churches to display the consecrated Host, was not used, as Emmanuel Kasarhérou points out (in Kanak: L'art est une Parole, Paris, 2013, p.53), for dismembering corpses or severing heads or fingers, as reported by early travellers, for which its physical properties would be highly ill-suited. Rather they served as prestige objects with no function other than to highlight the impressive stone discs which formed the head. Its name in the languages of New Caledonia, "stone club" or "green club" (o kono in the Ajië language, or boulaibi bounbout in the Bélep language), suggests its form most likely developed from a stone-headed axe. The disc of serpentine or nephrite is fastened to a wooden shaft with fibre cords passing through two holes at the base of the stone disc. On more elaborate examples, such as the present lot, the top of the shaft is carved with human masks, resembling those found on New Caledonia spears. The shaft is bound with cloth or tapa and cord made from plant fibres and/or the fur of the flying-fox, here forming a pleasing pattern of lozenges reminiscent of those to be found on door jambs. The base of the shaft rests on an inverted half-coconut. The base of the present lot is surrounded by a row of attached shells. According to Maurice Leenhardt, each such shell once represented the various clans to which the axe's owner belonged.