This formidable armour from Kiribati was often used in ritualised battles to settle disputes. The armour was worn by champions chosen to fight on behalf of their group.
The body armour is woven from coconut palm fibre on a netted frame, while the darker patterning, depicting sharks, tuna and frigate birds, is made of human hair. It is strong enough to deflect spears, shark-tooth weapons, and even steel knives and bayonets. The sword or lacerator is studded with shark’s teeth.
The Tungaru people of Kiribati have a long tradition of shark hunting and their weapons feature teeth from at least 17 shark species. Curiously, some of the most common teeth come from two species no longer found around the islands, the Dusky Shark and Spot-tail Shark. It is likely they were once prevalent but have now become locally extinct, possibly due to the pressures of commercial fishing.
More than 25,000 islands dot the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, and many of their inhabitants developed sophisticated systems of navigation. Behind the Kiribati armour, an array of interwoven bamboo sticks is in fact a form of sea chart used by Marshall Islanders to navigate their canoes. The charts represent ocean swell patterns around the islands and were memorised prior to a voyage. They were so varied in form that the navigator who made the chart was often the only person who could interpret it.
At the front of the case, the marked cylinders are coral core samples from Funafuti, a small coral atoll in Tuvalu. The geologist Sir Tannatt Edgeworth David, a trustee of the Australian Museum, led expeditions to Funafuti in 1897 and 1898 to collect specimens and test Darwin’s theory about the formation of atolls. Darwin was the first to suggest that coral atolls began as fringing reefs growing around volcanic seamounts. The seamount later sank into the sea, leaving the reef. The site is now known as Darwin’s Drill.