Modified canines: Circular pig's tusks in Vanuatu and the wider Pacific

Pig’s tusks are used widely across the Pacific as tools, adornment, valuables and to denote status. Modified canines which can ultimately be full-circle at least once, sometimes twice and more rarely three times, are very much associated with Vanuatu custom. They have a wider geographic spread, from New Guinea to Tonga, which in some areas is likely to have some antiquity and in others relates to historical period exchange. This chapter looks at their history, spread, symbolism and appropriation as representations of national identity in the twentieth century.