M

Member

Speaking in the House of Lords on 5 November 2024

Debate

Ivory Act 2018 (Meaning of “Ivory” and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2024

Contribution

Then there is the Hull Maritime Museum, which houses the largest scrimshaw collection in Europe. Like the Scott institute, part of this collection was formed by a collector, in this case Kathleen Tizard, before being given to the museum in 1999. Ethnographic items, such as antique whale teeth—tabua—were by tradition used by Fijians as a marriage token. Unlike elephants, the whales from which these teeth were taken were hunted not for their ivory but for their meat or fat. Although elephant ivory is regarded as a commodity in China, sometimes purchased by weight, the same cannot be said for marine ivory items, such as sperm whale teeth. The Horniman Museum in London contains examples of tabua, and a large part of its collection was acquired by Frederick Horniman, a collector who used wealth earned from the tea trade to bring together artifacts that would educate the British about the lives of other peoples in remote corners of the globe.

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