Fugitive Shell Necklace Production In Tasmania

There is increasing evidence for a kind of shell necklace production in Tasmania that is coming to light via oral histories. Albeit a somewhat romantic aberration, ‘native settler’ Tasmanians talk about making shell necklaces and often along the lines of those made by Indigenous Tasmanians and the colonial commercial necklaces that mimicked them.

It seems that by-and-large they were made by a relatively small group of Tasmanians as children, sometimes aided by adult family members, while “holidaying at the beach.” Nonetheless, now that people are beginning to talk more openly about this aspect of family memories, and memorabilia, it seems quite likely that more first and secondhand stories, and firsthand recollections, will emerge. With this a better idea of the scale of the activity will be gleaned.

Seemingly it seems that this activity was prevalent post WW2 when beach side holidaying and recreational day tripping became more possible due to greater access to motor transport and more workers in Australia having statutory holidays. Nonetheless some of these oral histories seem go back much further to the early 20th Century, or even earlier, for one location in northern Tasmania. There some families that were able to travel with relative ease to their beach location by boat to their holiday retreat before motor vehicle access was possible.

By necessity these holidays were somewhat rustic affairs that involved, necessitated even, a certain amount of ‘hunting and gathering’ given the relative remoteness. Apparently this seemed to evoke an atmosphere of ‘going native’.

If the shell necklace making mimicked Indigenous necklace making and at the same time provided a diversion on “wet and windy days”, this is not particularly surprising.

In its romanticism, this activity is relatively innocent and benign. These necklaces were never ‘up for sale’ but interestingly it seems making them is invested with the idea of connectivity to place – Tasmania and Tasmanian beaches in a European cum settler context.

Yet somehow, these necklaces still seem to carry some kind of colonial subtexts to do with Aboriginal dispossession while reflecting Tasmania's settler communities’ yearnings to be connected to place. These stories are ever likely to be very local stories with a colonial flipside of a kind and the kind that oftentimes are likely to be lost.

It has been suggested that some of these necklaces have been unknowingly donated to museums and the National Trust. The network would welcome any further information readers may have.