Beaded Cow Bone Necklace

African Beaded Cow Bone Necklace   (Unisex)   

Please click on the  selection tab for the colour/style you want DO NOT click on the picture.                          

Handmade from polished cow bone. 

Please note thickness and length of horn varies as these are all handmade therefore each unique. 

Approx length 30cm long.       

Handmade in South Africa by the Zulu Tribe. 

Maybe a first impression of wearing cow bone on a necklace, (earring, or bracelet) is a little offsetting.

However, in Africa, cows are a sign of wealth so they associate the wearing of bone as a sign of wealth and prosperity. The process of carving cow bone for jewellery began centuries ago in Africa and also was practiced among many Native Americans.

In Africa, the bones are carved into beads and then sometimes they are stained to give the bone a black and white coloring.

The necklace is also made of cow bone beads bringing the wearer plenty of wealth & prosperity.

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Zulu is a language with clicks, borrowed from the neighboring Khoisan languages from South and East Africa, such as Taa (or !Xóõ), !Kung (or !Xũ), Juǀʼhoans (or Zhuǀ’hõasi), and Khoekhoe (or Nàmá).

Other Bantu languages like Xhosa and Sotho use clicks.

A click is a sound produced with the tongue or the lips without using the lungs. The Zulu language counts three of them: the dental click, the palatal click, and the lateral click.

The Zulus count on their fingers starting with the little finger of the left hand to the left thumb, and continuing with the thumb of the right hand.

The digits from six to nine keep the meaning of that way of counting:
the word for six, isithupha, means “thumb”, the word for seven, isikhombisa, means “the one that points out”, eight, or isishiyagalombili, means “two remain”, and finally nine, or isishiyagalolunye, means “one remains”.

One = kunye
Two = kubili
Three = kuthathu