Pitt Rivers Museum Anthropology and World Archaology

 

Oceania

 

Neck ornament

Hawaiian Islands, USA

 

Collected by Frederick William Beechey

Transferred to the Museum from the Ashmolean Museum in 1886

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Neck ornament, Hawaiian Islands, USA

This large neck ornament from the Hawaiian Islands in Polynesia is made from plaited human hair, with a hook-shaped whale’s tooth suspended from the centre. This object was collected in the early nineteenth century, when Hawaiian society was very hierarchical. Both men and women of high status wore these neck ornaments, known as lei niho palaoa, as signs of rank. They were particularly valued because of their use of hair, which had great spiritual importance.

View database record 1886.1.1270