Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Plains Indian War Club

Native American Weapons • Pre-contact to 19th century

Type War Club

Category Native American Weapons

Era Pre-contact to 19th century

Museum / Collection Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard; Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

War clubs were among the most important weapons and status symbols of the Northern Plains nations encountered by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Styles varied widely among nations: the Sioux and Mandan used stone-headed war clubs with rawhide-wrapped handles, while other nations favored gunstock-style clubs shaped like a rifle butt (reflecting contact with European firearms). Lewis and Clark collected several war clubs during the expedition, some of which were sent back to Jefferson with the keelboat from Fort Mandan in 1805. These artifacts provided Eastern Americans with their first direct evidence of Plains Indian military technology. The war club carried by Mato-Tope (Four Bears), depicted in both Catlin’s and Bodmer’s paintings, was particularly celebrated and reflected his status as a great warrior.