Product Details

Your necklace was most likely made in the Philippines or East Africa (specifically Kenya). The exact combination of long carved bone tube sections, smaller dark spacers, and a hand-braided natural fiber cord narrows down its origin to a few highly specific artisan jewelry-making traditions: • The Philippines Indigenous cultures like the Ifugao and Kalinga have a long history of crafting multi-strand statement jewelry using water buffalo (carabao) bone and horn. They traditionally string these heavy pieces on tight, double-braided native cotton or hemp cords. • Kenya: East African artisans are world-renowned for recycling cattle bone into long "hairpipe" or baton-style beads. They frequently layer them into heavy, cascading multi-strand necklaces strung on thick, regional plant fibers like sisal or hemp. ® Etsy • The 1970s Global Export Market: During the 1970s and 1980s boho-fashion boom, artisan workshops in both the Philippines and Kenya produced massive quantities of these.