The White Headhunter: The Story of a 19-Century Sailor Who Survived a South Seas Heart of Darkness by Nigel Randell

Author:Nigel Randell [Randell, Nigel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786712564

The collar as now displayed must have formed a striking decoration for a dusky Malaitan warrior with no clothing to conceal it. Possibly it was also an advertisement for his prowess in war. It consists wholly of teeth, human incisor teeth. The fang or root is pierced transversely with a hole for the suspending chord, and between each tooth is a small perforated disc of shell to give the correct spacing.

As to the original owners of these fine incisors one can only speculate. War and plunder are the usual outlet for high spirits among the islanders, and cannibal feasts to celebrate their victories. Whether the hostile incisors are then shared out equally among the victors or whether each warrior claims his own trophies, we do not know, but the latter plan is probable, and would make possession of such a collar highly desirable. In any case a white man can admire the trophy all the more fully since he knows that none of his own race have contributed to its formation. The white man's incisors are never perfect enough and never black enough to have any post-mortem decorative value.

Written in the late 1920s, Dr Gunn's musings reveal the paucity of ethnographic information about the island. There is no evidence that the islanders wore human teeth around their necks. As Renton observed, they collected heads. The only teeth worn were porpoise teeth, which were highly valued and only worn by priests or Big Men. It is likely that Renton's collar was an adaptation of the lingomo; a small wicker bag containing an incisor tooth from a warrior's first kill and was worn round the neck during a raid. In a recent examination of the collar carried out by David Whittaker, Professor of Forensic Dentistry at the University of Wales, he concluded that: `The degree of wear on the teeth biting edges is similar and probably relates to about three decades of life . . . I believe the teeth are not from individuals of a great age, but of mature age.' Of the fifty-nine teeth on the collar, Professor Whittaker was able to identify fifty-seven `with reasonable accuracy' and came to the conclusion that `these are, therefore, teeth from a minimum of nine individuals.'

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