Rasp, made with shark's skin.
Sharkskin Rasp, Maisin people, Oro Province, Papua New Guinea. Sharkskin is incredibly rough, and has been used to smooth woodcarvings all over the world for thousands of years. For the Maisin people of Papua New Guinea’s northern coast, this was a valuable bi-product of their everyday shark fishing. Maisin fishermen take a number of different small and large shark species for meat, including a number of hammerhead species (sesemeyafu) and smaller reef-type sharks (simberi). Sharkskin woodworking rasps of this basic form were traditionally made and used in many parts of the Pacific. This kind of tool was used for the first stage of the sanding process, while a leaf with a naturally abrasive surface was used for the final polishing off. Wood, sharkskin. Early 20th Century. Collected by the Rev. A. K. Chignell at Wanigera Mission in 1908 and presented to the Horniman Museum by his father later that year.
