ornament, arm

Traditional individually drilled discs of white shell and black coconut shell and coconut wood have been worked on to a plaited fibre foundation of native bark string to make these armbands. The technique attaches the discs in a characteristic sloping arrangement. Arm bands exactly like these collected on Ambrym in 1949 were said to indicate a man’s acquisition of a special ritual that was not associated with the local graded system. In the complex trading systems that linked Ambrym, Malekula and nearby islands, “copyrights” to new rituals could be purchased from trading partners.