Challenge : Native Tribes

This European Street Team's weekly challenge was called "Native Tribes" and was organized by psarokokalo.

I have this fabulous book about ethnic jewellery (Ethnic Jewellery by John Mack, The Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Publications, 1988), which is full of treasures from all over the world. One of the pictures shows shell jewellery from south eastern New Guinea, which were the principal items in the Kula ceremonial gift exchange.

The soulava necklace is made of many disks bored from the shell of the Spondylus Oyster, and I could easily see very similar structure being made out of modern plastic buttons. The Spondylus disks vary from pale brown to deep red, and I have used saturated brown buttons. For the ornamentation (which is done with shells of several species in the picture above) I have used one oyster shell and eight cockle shells, that I have collected here on the beach.