The First Pacific Arts Festival

The first pacific festival of the arts began today, in Suva, Fiji. A celebration of the crafts. music and dance of the South Pacific peoples.

These women from the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) are making shell money by breaking up large shells, shaping them into small discs and then drilling a hole through the centre. Finally, the discs are threaded onto strings of coconut fibre.

Shell money is a medium of exchange that was once common in the South Seas. It consisted either of whole sea shells or pieces of them which were worked into beads or otherwise artificially shaped. The use of shells in trade began as direct commodity exchange, the shells having value as body ornamentation. No more than were actually needed were made, and as the process was difficult, the value of the coinage was satisfactorily maintained.