Mourning bloodletter, Hawai'i, 18th century
Mourning bloodletter, Hawai'i, 18th century
Made of barracuda jawbone(*) and wrapped in red-dyed barkcloth, this scarifier was used by mourners to draw blood from themselves in honour of a dead chief. You can see the original here along with a second picture and some curator's notes.
(*) The source contradicts itself by saying both barracuda and porpoise -- googling for images suggests it's a barracuda, but I could be wrong.
This image is used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license and requires this attribution: © The Trustees of the British Museum
Originally posted to Reddit by me in 2023.
The conical teeth indicate that's dolphin... But upon looking at cuda teeth, maybe!
Fun fact, barracudas have two sets of teeth. This is from the inner jaw.
Yep. I lived in the Florida Keys. Itd eerie how they follow your every move when diving with them.
Cool af, and also terrifying