Shell Necklace No. 5 from Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, necklace comes with card featuring the artist’s name and design description. 84cm with a 42cm drop, no clasp.

Girriŋgirriŋ is the Yolŋu word for seed or shell made jewellery, necklace or ornament.

Common materials used as beads are the seeds from plants such as Gum Tree (Eucalyptus), Rattlepod (Crotalaria), Red Bead Tree (Adenanthera pavonina), Sicklepod (Senna obtusifolia), Ŋaraka (fish vertebrae) from Parrotfish, Kingfish, small Mäna (sharks) and stingray, and seashells. Gapan (white clay) and natural earth pigments are sometimes used to paint the beads.

Small seeds are pierced with a needle. Large seeds are collected and then a piece of wire is heated in a fire and used to pierce the hole. Seashells are collected at low tide on the surface of the mud amongst the mangroves. Then they are boiled, cleaned and pierced with a piece of wire.

Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre is the Indigenous community controlled art centre of North East Arnhem Land. Located in Yirrkala, a small Aboriginal community on the northeastern tip of the Top End of the Northern Territory, approximately 700km east of Darwin. Our primarily Yolŋu (Aboriginal) staff of around twenty services Yirrkala and the approximately twenty-five homeland centres in the radius of 200km.

Priced at $84.00 with free postage on orders over $99.