Necklace (Lei Niho Palaoa)

The lei niho palaoa, made of braided human hair and the ivory teeth of beached whales, was an important symbol worn by the Hawai'ian nobility to indicate their genealogical descent from the gods. After the conversion of most Hawai'ians to Christianity in the mid-nineteenth century, such necklaces continued to indicate social status but lost much of their previous spiritual symbolism.

This necklace is one of many Polynesian objects picked up by early travelers possessing little or no understanding of the items' original context or function. An unknown collector incorrectly identified the object as a "Sorcerer's Necklace from Tahiti," and this misidentification has become part of its history.