Name/Title
Turtle Shell Palauan StoryboardEntry/Object ID
2023.1.517Description
Polished turtle shell Palauan storyboard that tells a traditional story in pictographic and representational form. Its architectural parents were the carved beams and gables of the bai, a men’s club house which traditionally formed the social nucleus for males in a Palauan community.Context
This "scrimshaw" tells the story of The Deceived Husband of Ngkeklau. In Ngkeklau there lived a man who went to sea each day to fish for shark. The man had a wife who was unfaithful with a lover who came whenever her husband was at sea. One day when the husband was spearing shark, he was one swimming upside down. This was a sign, as everyone knew, that the man’s wife was being unfaithful. The husband became angry and headed for home. As he approached the shore, he saw a group of men waiting for all the canoes to land. Releasing that his wife’s lover must be among these men, he aimed his spear at the group and shouted, “Ha, I see the culprit who dared to touch my wife while I was away.” The guilty man, just back from visiting the man’s wife, leaped up in terror and began to run. Before he could get away safely, he was speared and killed. The chief of the village congratulated the husband on his clever way of detecting his wife’s lover. The story is recognized by an inverted shark near the canoe.