The artists of the Santa Cruz Islands, which lie between the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, created distinctive breastplates, known as tema, tambe, or tepatu. This one is seven inches across! As you can tell by the rope, when it was made in the late 1800s or early 1900s, this breastplate was intended to be worn, not displayed.
It was made of two materials, the white shell of giant clams on the bottom, and the mottled turtle shell on the top. Although it looks abstract to an outsider the breastplates actually represented parts of the natural world. The white disk is the sun. The turtleshell overlay represents birds, fish, dolphins, sharks, and other species important in the Santa Cruz religion.
This particular one is a frigate bird, with its wings in an “m” above and its forked tail below. There are three arches on top of the bird, perhaps suggesting dolphins or sharks.
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