A rare and extremely fine ceremonial toki or adze or toki, the handle entirely covered with coir binding. These elaborate, and finely crafted toki from Mangaia, in the Cook Islands, are distinct from those made anywhere else in the Pacific. An example like this, which is manoeuvrable with one hand, would have been used as a weapon as well as an object of artistic and ritual significance. It is also a god image.

The act of binding was part of consecration rituals, and considered on a continuum with carved surface pattern. This toki may therefore be a forerunner of later carved examples. Careful protocols surrounded the preparation of cocunut fibres for the coir binding, which have been revived in consitutional celebrations in the 20th century. Stone blades were exchange valuables and may have been re-used with different handles and bindings.

A toki maker was a ta’unga (expert) who enjoyed social and economic importance. This toki shows distinctive use of the KK design, as well as a compass and star motif on the base of the handle, which are associated with the ta'unga Tangitoru.

The toki was formerly in the collections of the London Missionary Society. Missionaries tended to take and burn such meaning-rich objects as part of conversion practices, but the best were kept for European collections, and some were hidden by islanders. This example may have been collected from Mangaia by the missionary John Williams who first set foot on the island in May 1830, arriving there from Raiatea in the 'Messenger of Peace'. Two toki of similar quality, known to have been collected by Williams were returned by the LMS to the Cook Islands Library and Museum Society in about 1962.