Author: Christina Ayele Djossa / Source: Atlas Obscura
At the sight of these New Guinean daggers, you’d think they were made from wood or maybe ivory. Not quite. The bottom one comes from a cassowary. The first two were made from the femurs of warriors on the South Pacific island around 100 years ago.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, bone daggers were carved from the tibiotarsus (upper leg bone) of cassowaries, a flightless bird native to New Guinea. The daggers symbolized strength and social prestige within the community, which was often defined by the number of enemies and cassowaries killed. According to Dartmouth College anthropologist Nathaniel J. Dominy, it’s unclear what the intricately sculpted designs of geometric shapes, lines, faces, birds, and crocodiles on these daggers represent, but they are most often interpreted as power symbols. “The most powerful images were on the handle,” wrote Dominy, so the user could harness the power by gripping the handle.
Human bone daggers, however, are rare compared to cassowary bone daggers, which you can still find on eBay. Out of roughly 499 bone daggers housed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and the Field Museum in Chicago, only 21 are human. These daggers were carved from the femurs of men who were victorious on the battlefield or vanquished rivals who had racked up a high number of kills. “It was the possession of a human bone that entitled you the rights, magic, and prestige of the…
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