1919

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: toea arm shell ring (112g). VF

Currency:USD Category:Antiques / Ethnographic Start Price:190.00 USD Estimated At:250.00 - 300.00 USD
PAPUA NEW GUINEA: toea arm shell ring (112g). VF
SOLD
200.00USD+ (40.00) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2021 May 14 @ 21:51UTC-7 : PDT/MST
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PAPUA NEW GUINEA: toea arm shell ring (112g), Opitz p.233 (Mwali), consisting of a large shell ring (ca. 65mm in diameter & 32mm tall), sewn together with seven cowries and three strings of smaller shells, attached to a cord with two larger cowries and four bunches of red fibers, used for trade and bride payment on the Trobriand Islands, where it plays an imporant role in the kula ring, a traditional exchange ceremony, choice VF, ex Charles Opitz Collection. From Professor C. G. Seligman in "The Melanesians of British New Guinea " (1910, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, p.93) states: arm-shells, toea, as they are called by the Motu, are traded from the Port Moresby district westward to the Gulf of Papua. Among the Motu and Koita, near Port Moresby, they are highly valued, and nowadays attain very high prices, much more than is paid for the same article among the Massim." Due to its cultural significance, toea was adopted as the name of the currency of Papua New Guinea in 1975 (= 0.01 kina).