Tevau (red feather currency)

This is a tevau, a coil of highly prized red feathers from the Santa Cruz Islands in the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands. In this region, tevau was a kind of currency often exchanged for services and goods such as canoes, root crops, turtles and pigs. Tevau were also gifted as part of marriage ceremonies.

Materials and decoration

Each tevau was made by skilled specialist craftspeople, who would catch honeyeater birds and collect only four of their very small red feathers. Tevau can contain the red feathers of over 300 birds. The feathers were carefully attached to overlapping platelets and decorated with shells and fibre. This coil of red-feather money has been wrapped in leaves and western oil-cloth to protect it. This would also have kept it dry while it was being transported by sailing canoe between islands.

Significance

As well as being a standard currency, the feathered coils are appreciated for their beauty and the work that goes into making them. In 1948, the famous canoe navigator Tevake, from Peleni, exchanged ten turtles for one especially fine tevau. However, the value of the coils declines as the feathers fade.

Acquisition History

This tevau was collected in 1969 on Peleni in the Santa Cruz Islands and purchased by Te Papa in 2012.