eBAY FIND- April 2010 USA - maireener shells

NOTE: The necklace above has been relisted and redescribed removing the word "Aboriginal" from the title and description. This reflects the ambiguity of the piece and indeed it may well be a Hobart Necklace circa early 1900s and even one that found its way to the USA via Honolulu.

These finds are continuing evidence that a great many of these necklaces were made and many more than there are likely to have been Tasmanian Aboriginal makers to produce them. – albeit that there were clearly some. It is unclear how the necklaces made as "Hobart Necklaces" in the late 1800s and early 1900s came to be understood as "Aboriginal Shell Necklaces".

eBAY is most likely the vehicle via which the word maireener (the Tasmanian Aboriginal word for the shells and sometimes the necklaces made from them) has entered the 'global' lexicon for these particular shells and seemingly increasingly used by default for all small iridescent shells used for necklace making – Tasmanian & other.

They are also evidence of the global carelessness for the cultural cargo "Tasmanian Aboriginal Shell Necklaces" carry. This is so even though it is increasingly clear that the Hobart Necklaces are blatant mimics of their 'Aboriginal prototypes'. Unless "Aboriginal" carries some kind of cultural cargo that adds value to the necklace it is difficult to explain why these mimics so readily win 'quasie Aboriginal status'.