Jewellery from Brazil
Choose from carved vegetable ivory, natural seed, and bead jewellery
VEGETABLE IVORY or TAGUA from Peru
These lovely tagua necklace pieces are carved by Carla from Huaraz. Carla carefully sources her tagua which comes from the Yarina or Ivory Nut Palm Phytellaphus macrocarpa - a common Peruvian rainforest tree. The tagua is actually from the palms' nut (which grow together in clusters in a big nutshell) so it's a valuable, sustainable non-food forest resource.
photograph showing woody palm nut cross-section with white vegetable ivory inner tagua nuts.
The leaves of the Yarina Palm are used for roofing, and the fruit which falls to the ground is eaten by rodents leaving the nuts with the seed / tagua inside. The nuts are collected by the locals who see the collection as a special experience – like an easter egg hunt.
Like rubber (known as vegetable leather) tagua is also called vegetable ivory and has been used for over 100 years and principally for making buttons as well as some jewellery.
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