C060 - Collector's item: a carved walking stick/cane made by an inmate of Con-Son interrogation camp in Vietnam in 1966 .
"From 1964-1967 I was based in South Vietnam during the conflict, working for the American Army as a British civilian. We had four navigational stations strategically placed, one of which was situated on the island of Con Son, which is 50 miles off the South coast of Vietnam. This was a beautiful desert island that was the ideal place for R&R (rest and recreation). However, on the island in the middle of the jungle interior was a prison, infamous for its sadistic treatment of its prisoners, originally built by the French in the 1930's to interrogate suspected ringleaders of the Viet Minh forces. Whilst I was in the country, the prison was being used to interrogate inmates suspected of being Communists or communist sympathisers. There were a few trustees from the prison who were allowed to sell artifacts made by the prisoners. This is where I managed to acquire this beautiful walking stick with a hand carved dragon spiralling down the whole of the stick."
He went on to tell me about some of his experiences there and produced various documents to back these up, some of which I was able to photograph to confirm the provenance of the stick.
The stick itself is made of two different types of wood. The shank is of a dense, light-coloured wood that I'm not familiar with; I can only describe it as something like a cross between holly and boxwood. This has been shaped and carved by hand with an ornate bas-relief image of a dragon twisted round the shank. Unusually, the dragon's head is at the bottom; at the top end, the dragon's tail ends in a sunburst figure containing what appears to be the Yin-Yang symbol of life. Possibly the artist was trying to express something that his captors would not have been too happy about had they been able to understand it!
The unusually-shaped handle is extremely comfortable in use and places the user's weight well forward over the shank. (I've made a tracing of it for future use.) This is made of a dark wood looking very much like walnut - in fact, it could well be some local variety of walnut. The name of the place, Con-Son, is carved into the handle. The end of the handle is rather abrupt and has not been given the smooth finish of the rest of the stick. There are no signs to indicate there was ever any additional piece of capping on the end. However, some parts of the carving on the shank have an unfinished appearance and I can't help wondering whether the stickmaker's work was overtaken by events before he was able to add the finishing touches. All a bit ominous.
Marks on the tip of the stick indicated there had been a ferrule fitted originally, but this was now missing. I fitted a replacement steel-tipped brass one, using hot-melt glue.
A well-crafted stick and perhaps a reminder to us all that armed conflicts in far-away places affect the lives of real people.