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An incredibly rare Shark Tooth Lacerator. This is a stone-carved item with a very fine patina. It’s been made by inserting shark’s teeth into an adhesive cement-type substance composed of kangaroo dung and other components. This has been added onto the wooden handle and is unbelievably solid. Ochre has been applied to the area housing the teetch. I know of only one other example – displayed in the Australian Museum in Sydney and featured too in Australian Aboriginal Stone Implements, by F.D. McCarthy. This one, however, is a far more impressive specimen, both for the fact that it is evidently older and for the fact that it adheres to the traditional ‘beehive’ form found on throwing clubs and other aboriginal artefacts. It’s a true rarity and as curious as they get.  It appears others, in times pas,t were made with kangaroo teeth, or whatever teeth were available. But these are most certainly shark’s teeth, which suggests the item comes from a coastal area, possibly Queensland. These items were used exclusively for fighting and settling differences and had no other utilitarian or hunting function. They were carried by young men, but they haven’t been seen for about 100 years or more, no doubt because they were made obsolete by the introduction of European alternatives. The patina and the mode of construction suggests this item dates back to the 19th century.
$995