- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Part of a complete woman's dance costume: Belt of coconut fibre cord strung with many black coconut shell discs. [JP 19/6/2004]
- Long description
- A long strand of coconut fibre cord 2560 mm long folded and knotted at the ends, and knotted again approximately 300 mm from either end. Each of the two 680 mm lengths of cord between these two secondary knots are strung with many (approximately 110 each) small black coconut shell discs closely packed together. [JP 19/6/2004]
- Geographical reference
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 03/2001
- Date collected
- February 1999 to March 2001
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 2004
- Materials and processes
- Material Coconut Husk Plant, Material Coconut Fibre Yarn Plant, Material String
- Dimensions
- Diameter 17 mm discs, approx, Width 5 mm discs, approx, Length 1280 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 2004.56.20.3
- Research and responses
The Material Culture of Kiribati by Gerd Koch (Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific 1986) pp. 155 - 156 describes katau belts as follows: " two strands of coconut fibre cord, knotted together at the ends and lying loosely, parallel to each other. On each is strung a very large number of small coconut shell discs, closely packed together". NB: The katau in this collection is made from a single strand of cord rather than two. The publication also includes the following information about their production: '... the making of katau (kauroro) has been regarded as man's work. ... According to our experience ... it was mainly men of middle age, up to about 50 years old, who were thus occupied. In order to make a coconut shell disc apparently one first had to break off suitable pieces from the shell of a fully ripe coconut using a stone (for a long time now though a knife has been used for the purpose). Next a hole was bored through the piece using a shark's tooth, a splinter of bone or a pointed snail shell ... and then the piece would be threaded on a coconut fibre cord, before being polished into the desired round shape several at a time, on a stone ... from a submerged reef. In more recent times various katau have been produced substituting glass beads for coconut shell discs ..." [NB. the donor has commented that she never saw glass bead katau.] [JP 19/6/2004]
2004.56.20.3
Part of a complete woman's dance costume: Belt of coconut fibre cord strung with many black coconut shell discs. [JP 19/6/2004]
2004.56.20.3
Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
If you wish to order a high-resolution image and/or licence its use for print or web publication, exhibition, film, promotional product or any other use, whether in the academic or commercial sector of any print run, then please visit photographic services.