$10 note

Solomon Islands, AD 1977

Modern money as a record of tradition

This mass-produced banknote illustrates the traditional manufacture of other forms of valuables. In the Solomon Islands of the Pacific, prized native shells are hand-crafted into objects of social and economic value. The shells are broken up to make small disc beads, which are then drilled so that they can be strung on cords made of vegetable fibre. The strings of shell beads are used for social payments such as bridewealth or compensation for wrong-doing. In the past, these shell beads were also used in exchange for food and other necessities, but that function is now performed by coins and paper money.

Today, the Islands' banknotes provide a record of older traditions. The back of this 10 dollar note depicts a woman drilling holes in beads placed in half a coconut shell. To the left are completed strings of shell beads.

A. Pick, N. Shafer and C.K. Bruce (eds.), Standard catalog of world pape (Iola, Wisconsin, annual publication)

D. Starzecka and B.A.L. Cranstone, The Solomon Islanders (London, The British Museum Press, 1974)