Pate (cricket bat)

This is a pate (cricket bat) from Samoa. The sport of kilikiti, a form of cricket, was introduced to Samoa in the nineteenth century by visiting sailors and missionaries. Today, it is a major summer sport for Samoans.

In Samoan kilikiti each team has two wicket keepers, and numbers can range from 10 to 20 players, involving all ages, women and children. Although discouraged by the colonial Germans in the early 1900s because of the week-long traditional games, the British game was encouraged by the New Zealand administraton in the 1920s, and introduced to Samoan schools. Malifa School, the first to organise a kilikiti team in 1921, was followed by Avele College, a boys agricultural boarding school established in 1924, where new students were encouraged to bring along cutlery, clothing and a kilikiti bat.

Lashed with sennit

This pate made of light-coloured wood, has a triangular sectioned blade. The handle and upper part of the blade are bound with sennit (plaited coconut husk fibre). The lashing is partly decorative: there is a short area at the poll where the bindings are continuous, then there are nine rings of three coils separated by blanks of equivalent width, then a long continuous area of lashing and finally three three-strand rings separated by equal spaces.

Autographed

The bat is inscribed and autographed with the following text; Avele Cricket Team, 1935-1936: 1. Aiatu, 2. Luia’i, 3. Taua’ivale, 4. Ta’ape, 5. Alenepi, 6. Suaesi, 7. Iakopo, 8. Iosefa, 9. Sione, 10. Talau, 11. Iosefa, 12. Viliamu, 13. Peleseuma, 14. Pauono, 15. Faulalogatā, 16. Eti

Acquisition

This pate was gifted to the National Museum (Te Papa’s predecessor) by A. Crowther in 1983. It was presented to Walter James Crowther by the administrator of Avele College in Samoa on 7 October 1936. Walter had captained the Avele cricket team, and this pate was among other gifts given to him on his departure from Samoa.