TRUGANINI AND QUEEN LILIUOKALANI

In a postcolonial cum ‘global’ paradigm, various kinds of ‘necklaces’ – amulets, rosaries, chains of office, lei, etc. – carry subtexts that can emerge from the ether to haunt us in various ways. Interestingly, they are rarely referred to as "necklaces" in their original cultural context.

Hawaii's Queen Liliuokalani[6], the last of the Hawaiian monarchs, owned a number of Tasmanian kelp – maireener – shell necklaces, ‘Truganini Necklaces’, that seem to have come to her via a retail sale in Honolulu – and quite possibly understood by her as lei[7]. They are now in the collection of the Bishops Museum in Honolulu.

• “Queen Liliuokalini lived until 1917, and thus it’s most likely that she would have either bought them at a store, or perhaps someone might have given them to her, but probably (again) just by having purchased them commercially. By the time she was an adult, Hawaii had a completely westernized economy, particularly in Honolulu”[8]

Undoubtedly Queen Liliuokalani’s 'shell necklaces/lei' originated in Tasmania. Most likely they found their way to Honolulu via the M M Martin[9] enterprise of Hobart, and Honolulu, to be recontextualised as, and marketed as, lei – and ultimately accepted by a Polynesian monarch as such. They left Tasmania as ‘Hobart cum Truganini Necklaces’ and immediately turned into ‘lei’ when they landed on the wharf in Honolulu.

When Tasmanian Aboriginal shell necklaces – maireeners – are claimed as “necklaces,” or ‘lei’ even, it says nothing at all about their ‘original’ cultural context. It is a blatant and opportunistic act of cultural-blending. Moreover, it is more to do with "blanding’ than it might have anything to do with blending." – Dr. Rod Ewins paraphrased[10] . What is missing, indeed what’s washed away, is the accommodation of differing cultural sensibilities in a global context. Ultimately, all this is to do with colonising ‘identity’.