Shark Tooth Dagger

A wooden blade adorned with two rows of shark teeth, each painstakingly bored through a small hole and bound with natural twine. The knife originates from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, a chain of 16 atolls in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. The Gilberts are now part of Kiribati, while the Ellice Islands became Tuvalu in 1978.

The knife was presented to the Guille-Allès Museum by Rear Admiral Francis Henry Shortt, a Guernsey resident from at least 1860 onwards who collected numerous items during his long service in the Royal Navy, and subsequently donated some of them to the burgeoning Museum collection.