Vuasagale necklace

This necklace is made up of eighteen small polished teeth held together by a plant fiber ligature.

It was in the late 18th and 19th centuries, with the arrival of whalers and the establishment of whaling factories on the Fiji Islands, that sailors, aware of the precious nature conferred on sperm whale ivory by the Polynesians, who until then had depended on beached cetaceans, provided them with an abundance of these teeth.

Unlike the Wasekaseka necklace, where sperm whale teeth were cut, the Vuasagale necklace was made from whole sperm whale teeth chosen for their small size.

Both types of necklace were highly prized objects, marking the status of high-ranking Fijians,