item details
Overview
Traditionally, Māori made and wore items of jewellery that decorated the head, ears, neck, and breast. The most common materials used were pounamu (New Zealand greenstone), ivory, and whale bone (baleen). The first Māori settlers brought the fashions typical of East Polynesia with them. The most common ornaments found in New Zealand's earliest archaeological sites consist of reel-type necklaces, often with a central pendant made from genuine or imitation whale tooth.
Details
A single sperm-whale-tooth pendant like this example is called a rei puta and is found in New Zealand and East Polynesia. Rei puta pendants were also made from imitation whale ivory using moa (large, flightless, and extinct native New Zealand bird: Dinornis gigantean) bone and whale bone. Sometimes those made from whale teeth had carvings on their surfaces, as with this example. The lower pointed part of this pendant has the remnants of a typical full-frontal facial image. The image and the surface of the tooth are marred by black stress fractures, indicating the pendant's age.
History
Whale tooth pendants like this one have been found widely distributed in New Zealand and in East Polynesia, therefore providing solid evidence of Māori cultural links to East Polynesia. Rei puta pendants were fashionable for both men and women in the early period of settlement, before styles changed and new ornaments, especially those made from pounamu became more popular and the older East Polynesian styles gradually disappeared.
Acquisition
This rei puta was a bequest of K A Webster in 1958.