Necklaces made of sperm whale ivory teeth were incredibly rare prior to the 19th century. Many Fijians highly valued the material, which they associated with the ocean god Tangaloa, but they did not hunt the whales from which the material came. Instead, they only retrieved ivory from whales that had beached themselves. In the 19th century, European whalers began to exchange ivory from slaughtered whales for sandalwood and other raw materials. The surge of this precious material in eastern Oceania resulted in new art forms, like the necklace displayed here. By 1870, ivory necklaces were so common that Fijians bean to trade them back to Europeans as souvenirs.