Necklace, Hawaiian Islands

Necklaces such as this, known as lei niho palaoa, were amongst the most valuable and highly prized of personal ornaments in the vast array of regalia and personal decoration available to the ali’i, the Hawaiian nobility. Adrienne Kaeppler has described them as “the most spectacular of all Hawaiian ornaments” (Adrienne L. Kaeppler, Polynesia: The Mark and Carolyn Blackburn Collection, Honolulu, 2010, p. 371), and according to David Malo, the Hawaiian historian, they were second in value and prestige only to feathered articles, such as the great cloaks, ‘ahu ‘ula. Malo notes that the ali’i would wear their lei niho palaoa, like their cloaks, “in battle or on occasions of ceremony and display” (David Malo, Hawaiian Antiquities, Honolulu, 1903, p. 107).

Examples of the hook form pendants retrieved from archaeological contexts are often made of shell, coral, or calcite, amongst other materials, with marine ivory historically only available from beached whales. European and American whalers began to trade with the Hawaiians in earnest in the late 18^th century, bringing large quantities of marine ivory in the form of whale teeth and walrus tusks. The greater availability of this material did not diminish its value amongst the ali’i, but rather led to a flourishing in the manufacture of pendants of greater size, drama, and beauty. No distinction whatsoever in value appears to have been drawn between pendants made of whale teeth or walrus tusk, or indeed between lei niho palaoa made of these materials and certain rare and unusual examples made from elephant ivory brought from China.

The interpretation of the distinctive shape of niho palaoa remains uncertain. According to Cox and Davenport, its curving tongue-like shape represents the ultimate abstraction of the “protruding jaw-mouth-tongue” form found in ‘aumakua images of family gods or deified ancestors (J. Halley Cox and William H. Davenport, Hawaiian Sculpture, Honolulu, 1974, p. 42), a theory which perhaps indicates the genealogical connection between these deities and the aristocratic wearers of lei niho palaoa. The Hawaiian historian Lucia Jensen suggests that the pendants “represent […] the ho’aka (crescent), which […] symbolized the vessel of mana”, or supernatural power (Lucia Jensen cited in Roger G. Rose, Hawai’i: The Royal Isles, Honolulu, 1980, p. 196).

The pendant itself is not the only vessel of mana. Human hair was considered sacred by Hawaiians, since the head was believed to be tapu and therefore captured the mana of the person to whom it belonged. The coils of exquisitely finely braided human hair from which the pendants are suspended are thus an equally remarkable and powerful part of these extraordinary objects.