The illustrated family heirlooms, assembled by the first ancestors, are usually gold breast pendants or earrings, jewellery well-known locally, each with its own name. Since time immemorial these precious objects played an important role in Tanimbar culture and varying from finery to dowry goods. On Tanimbar the intrinsic meaning of the objects was much as it was elsewhere - here, too, jewellery was a substitute trophy, propagating the prestige of the family group.