Distribution of Pearls and Pearl-shell III 
Nanomana similar offerings were suspended under the 
altars of the principal gods Foelangi and Maumau. 
Among the Torres Straits Islanders pearl-shells are 
trimmed and worn as breast-ornaments, or carved into 
beautiful crescentic and other shapes to be worn as 
pendants either on the chest or in the ears." 
They also appear to have been used in mummifica- 
tion, as Dr. Elliot Smith has recently referred to the case 
of a Torres Straits mummy having the eye-sockets filled 
with a gum or resinous substance in which narrow oval 
pieces of mother-of-pearl were embedded.” 
Crescent-shaped plates of pearl-shell are also in 
common use as breast ornaments in British New Guinea 
and the Solomon Islands, and the same shell is used as 
an inlay to decorate the native canoes."” 
In the Sandwich Islands the eyes of idols were 
noticed by Captain Cook to be made from large pearl 
oysters, with a black nut fixed in the centre. 
Ellis, in his “ Polynesian Researches,’'” gives us a 
jucid description of the curious dress worn in Tahiti at 
death ceremonies of chiefs. This consisted of a cap of 
thick native cloth fitted close to the head ; in front were 
two large broad mother-of-pearl shells, covering the face 
like a mask, with one small aperture through which the 
wearer could look. Attached to this head-dress was a 
beautiful kind of network composed of small pieces of 
brilliant mother-of-pearl shell. each being about an inch 
or an inch and a half long, and less than a quarter of an 
110 A. C. Haddon, ‘* Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological 
Expedition to Torres Straits,” vol. iv., 1912, pp. 40-45. 
111 “¢The Migrations of Early Culture” (Manchester, 1915), p. 93. 
1122 Haddon, of. cét., iv., p. 43; and H. B. Guppy, ‘*‘ The Solomon 
Islands and their Natives,” London, 1887, pp. 131 and 146-7. 
223 Vol; 15, pp: 412-3: 
