Necklace, Hawaiian Islands

Lynda Cunningham, New York, acquired in the 1970s
Private Collection, New York, acquired from the above in the 1990s

Very good condition overall. Some expected wear and fraying to the finely braided strands of hair. Natural indentation to the hook, as visible in the catalogue illustration. Overall the hook is in excellent condition with exceptionally beautiful natural patina. Has custom made stand.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This beautiful necklace is an insignia of rank known as lei niho palaoa, which Adrienne Kaeppler has described as “the most spectacular of all Hawaiian ornaments” (Kaeppler, Polynesia: the Mark and Carolyn Blackburn Collection, Honolulu, 2010, p. 371). Lei niho palaoa were the preserve of the ali’i, the Hawaiian nobility, and according to David Malo, the Hawaiian historian, they were second in value and prestige only to feather articles, such as the great cloaks, ahu. Malo notes that the ali'i would wear their lei niho palaoa, like their feather cloaks, “in battle or on occasions of ceremony and display” (Malo, Hawaiian Antiquities, Honolulu, 1903, p. 107). The lei niho palaoa is composed of a sperm whale tooth pendant, niho palaoa, suspended from a long bundled braid of human hair, lei, meaning necklace. The materials used in the creation of these exquisite objects are rich in meaning and symbolism. The Hawaiians did not hunt whales, and they relied upon the rare sperm whales which washed ashore for their source of ivory, which was considered extremely sacred by the ali’i . In the nineteenth century American traders began to bring both whale teeth and walrus tusks to Hawaii, but the latter never achieved quite the same sanctity. The human hair lei is a continuous braid of extraordinary fineness and length; Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter H. Buck) notes that they could be over 1,700 feet long (Te Rangi Hiroa, Arts and Crafts of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1957, p. 537). The head was the most sacred and supernaturally powerful part of the body, and the hair used to suspend the pendant enhanced the mana of both the lei niho palaoa and its wearer.

The interpretation of the distinctive shape of the niho palaoa itself remains uncertain, although its symbolism is unquestionably complex. Cox and Davenport state that the curving tongue-like shape represents the ultimate abstraction of the “protruding jaw-mouth-tongue” form found in ‘aumakua images of family gods or deified ancestors (Cox and Davenport, Hawaiian Sculpture, Honolulu, 1974, p. 42), a theory which perhaps indicates the genealogical connection between these deities and the aristocratic wearers of lei niho palaoa. Kaeppler in turn associates the form of the lei niho palaoa with the crested overhang which appears on certain important wood sculptures of Lono, the great Hawaiian deity, noting that the “front curving lower jaw found in many images reflects the association of the whale tooth with Lono” (Kaeppler, “Genealogy and Disrespect: a Study of Symbolism in Hawaiian Images”, Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 3, Spring 1982, p. 89). “The evolution of the lei niho palaoa […] may be an artistic transformation of the natural whale tooth curve to balance the crested overhang” (ibid.) of images of Lono, which, according to Malo, may have had whale tooth ornaments placed around their necks (Malo, ibid., p. 148).

Kaeppler notes that “by extension, the wearing of a lei niho palaoa by a chief may symbolize the genealogical association of chiefs with gods. Human hair, a material from a sacred head, and whale tooth, a sacred and rare material from the sea, were used to make a symbolic ornament, suitable only for gods and chiefs.” (Kaeppler, ibid.).