Indigenous Handcrafted Earrings - Dentalium Shells & 4 Sacred Colours

• Sterling Silver hooks
  
• Dentalium Shells
• 4 Sacred Colours

Dentalium shell: It is clearly significant to the traditional economy of indigenous peoples, since one of its names literally means “true money,” and it was traded far beyond the coast where it is harvested. Tooth shells or tusk shells used in indigenous jewelry, adornment, and commerce. Shells of the species Antalis pretiosa which had been gathered on the shores of Vancouver Island were first traded to the Canadian Plateau between 1000 and 1 BCE. Nuu-chah-nulth peoples were the primary harvesters of dentalium shells. Among the Northwest Coastal tribes, the shells were valued for both trade and adornment. Young Nuu-chah-nulth girls of high status wore elaborate dentalium jewelry. When the jewelry was removed, a potlatch was held to celebrate and the girl would be considered eligible for marriage.

4 Sacred Colours

• Black: Emotional: West, Evening, Autumn, Sage, Bear
• Red: Mental: South, Afternoon, Summer, Cedar, Coyote.
• Yellow: Physical: East, Spring, Morning, Tobacco, Eagle.
• White: Spiritual: North, Night, Winter, Sweetgrass, Deer

The medicine wheel has four areas of a circle that have four different colours assigned to them. These colours are often yellow, red, black, and white. Different nations have different medicine wheel teachings based on their own stories, values, and beliefs and one is not more correct than another. The four colours embody concepts such as the Four Directions, four seasons, and sacred path of both the sun and human beings.

The number four is unique to the First Nations culture because everything is in the cycle of four. We have four seasons. We have four stages of life – infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. There are four directions – north, south, west and east. We have four types of life on earth – the four-legged, two-legged, winged ones, and water life.