Boat ornament

Boat ornament for the end pieces of canoes. Carved patterns and, above all, the number of affixed shells indicate the status of the owner. A shell is missing from this item. This item, as well as other objects in the Oceania collection, were collected by Wilhelm Lebahn, captain of the Imperial Navy survey ship »S.M.S. Planet«, on which the ethnologist, anthropologist and marine doctor Augustin Krämer was also travelling. The Lebahn collection was sold after his death by his brother-in-law Dr. Rudolf Plähn from Waldkirch.