The manufacture of shell and whale's tooth ornaments, used to designate rank in the pre-colonial era, also ended before the turn of the twentieth century. Chiefs also wore pearl shell breastplates , shaped by taking off the horny layer and smoothing it down, so that the shell retained its original shape. MacGregor, who visited Rotuma in 1932, includes in his field notes a drawing of three shells strung into a necklace with braided sennit. On Rotuma today, whales' teeth, still so highly prized in Fiji, are not the valuable objects they were in the past. They are not ceremonially transacted between Rotumans, nor do they play any special role in Rotuman rituals.
Today there are no special ornaments that designate chiefly rank.
Nor can contemporary chiefs be identified by special articles of clothing as was the case in the past. Chiefs also wore a girdle of woven sa'aga over their wraparounds. They were stained for the most part red, but some might be left white. Black was sometimes introduced by means of the bark of the si , a species of banana, which on drying turns a dull black. On the breast was the pearl shell, tiaf hapa , but the really distinctive part was the malhida , which it was taboo for any one else to wear.