Cultural Diversity...

I don't really do souvenirs.  I have been on other cruiser's boats that are decorated thoroughly with shells, carvings, relics from dives, you name it, from all the various places they have visited throughout the world.  Once in awhile I do come across something that pushes that particular button and I literally have to it. 

While in the Solomons, I learned that the people on Malaita Island hunt dolphins and use the teeth as a form of currency.  This is rare as most people have a reaction to dolphins that remind me of the section in one of Moietessier's books where he is trying to convince a fellow sailor that hunting dolphins for food isn't such a good thing.  His arguments are along the lines of how they aren't fish at all and that they are playful, intelligent, etc..  While in Honiara, I met an American expat that had a "dolphin eco tourist" lodge that was pretty much a front for an operation where he would use natives to catch live dolphins and then sell them to rich Saudis as pets.  Needless to say, this particular expat had embraced the dolphin hunting culture with enthusiasm as the laws regulating his chosen business were pretty lax.  On a less grand level, involvement with this "taboo" culture found its way into me as the desire for a token souvenir.  I tried all the tourist jewelry stores and got the reflexive politically correct reaction and the cold stares.  I ended up in the market talking to Malaita women selling vegetables and soon had a whole gang of them around me trying to shake me down for as much as they could when one of them finally decided to sell the necklace from around her neck.  The valuation process comes down to counting all the teeth in the necklace and comparing them for quality to agree on an acceptable average that then translates to a price per tooth.