[irina levin]

Maggie Macgregor’s shell necklace

Margaret Ross (Maggie) Macgregor (1888-1971) was about eleven years old when she was photographed in a pretty dress with a lace collar and wearing a shell necklace [M86/146). Maggie was the fourth daughter of Roderick Macgregor and his wife Mary Susan Thorburn of Torrisdale, Cambawarra, in the Shoalhaven district of New South Wales, but her necklace probably came from Tasmania. Tasmanian shell necklaces are very distinctive. They are usually made from maireener shells - Phasianotrochus irisodontes (rainbow kelp shell) or Phasianotrochus apicinus (pink-tipped kelp shell), found on the east and north coasts of Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands. Shell necklaces of this kind are an important part of the cultural heritage of Tasmanian Aboriginal (Palawa) women and have been made by Palawa women for generations. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century there was also a non-indigenous trade and manufacture of maireener shell necklaces, sometimes sold as ‘Hobart necklaces’, and Maggie’s shell necklace may be one of these.
M87/313 + M86/146 [photograph]

Meroogal

Photograph: Jamie North, 2013
http://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/th...beads#data2282