Flintlock Musket (dakai qiwavatu) Fiji, 1817

Flintlock Musket (dakai qiwavatu) Fiji, 1817

Metal, wood, and glass beads
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts;
gift of the Bostonian Society, 1957

EX.8785.214 Photo (c) Museum Associates/ LACMA

American-made muskets were traded to Fiji by the thousands from the period of the sandalwood trade (1804–14) to the mid-nineteenth century. A few surviving examples exhibit intricately inlaid whale ivory and white glass seed beads added by Fijians.