Description (Labels & Markings)
A large label attached to the object reads: 'Guadalcanar (off end of string in care) [added later:] Z 32128'. A smaller label attached to the object reads: 'Black shell / currency / ?Guadalcanar / Man' on one side and 'Man 1908 / p.81' on the other.
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (Analysis)
Woodford writes: 'Bead Money from Guadalcanar - There is a very scarce kind of bead-money from Guadalcanar (P1. F, 3), which used to be made by the bush natives inhabiting the centre of the island in the neighbourhood of Tatuve. It is not now made, and the old bush chief, Sulakava, from whom I obtained my specimens, could not tell me what the material was. It consists of coarse, black, irregularly sized discs, but whether it is made of shell, or the shell of a nut, or of some kind of mineral, my informant was unable to say, and after examination I am equally at a loss to determine. Half a fathom of it is called Kurina; one fathom is called Paku (Woodford, Charles. 1908. Notes on the Manufacture of the Malaita Shell Bead Money of the Solomon Group. Man (Vol.8.), pp.81-84.
Event Date 1908
Author: Lucie Carreau

Context (Found together / assemblage)
These beads have probably fallen from 1920.594, have been re-strung and re-accessioned with a Z number.
Event Date 6/10/2015
Author: Lucie Carreau

Description (Physical description)
Black beads strung on cotton cord. Probably fallen from 1920.594. Possibly turtle-shell as light shines through.
Event Date 6/10/2015
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
[From catalogue card:] 'Black shell currency beads on string. Turtle shell?'
Event Date 6/10/2015
Author: maa

Context (Analysis)
Pacific Presences research fellow, Dr Kat Szabo, confirmed that the beads are not shell. While the texture appears fibrous, the fact that the light shines through suggests that it could indeed be turtle-shell.
Event Date 3/11/2017
Author: Lucie Carreau