Circus, Sideshow & Oddities

Santa Cruz / Solomon Islands Feather Currency Coil (Tevau). A late 19th or early 20th century tevau, or currency strap, composed of feathers, with beaded shell and seed embellishments, fiber, on bark cores, presented on an old cast iron display stand. Coil diam. 14”. Width 2”. Height (on stand) 26”. Loss of color and expected aging to fiber, splitting a little at center, but otherwise fine. A rare and valuable piece of ethnographic art, uncommon outside institutions. The traditional value of such coils, produced only in the Santa Cruz archipelago, would have depended on the richness of its red color, which derived solely from feathers from the Scarlet Honeyeater. An estimated 300 to 600 birds were needed to make a coil of this size, which would have taken hundreds of hours to make by several skilled hereditary craftsmen. As currency, the coils were reserved for major transactions such as pigs and canoes, or as wedding payments.