Bone dude

The last day Rachel and I had in Christchurch, we spent some time and hard earned cash carving pieces of bone into something useful. It was quite interesting. Though most of the touristy shops seem to focus on New Zealand greenstone as the neck adornment of choice, a great deal of traditional jewelry is constructed of bone. We thought it’d be cool to go carve a couple of our own and it turns out there are a few places that offer this. The bone dude (yes, the name of the company is called “The Bone Dude”) in Christchurch was our choice, and we had a pretty damn good time. He’s been doing this for a few years now, and had a lot of information about traditional carving. The fish hooks and spirals don’t mean anything in particular, unless you’re in the tourist industry and trying to rev up profits.

Usually, back before Europeans arrived the bone of choice was whale, and in some cases, people. If the latter, skull apparently makes wonderful material for carving. Not all people bone carving was due to grudges, either perceived or otherwise. Actually in traditional Maori culture revered elders (the VIPs of the day) were buried, and a couple of years down the road were often dug back up in order to make a piece of jewelry out of them. In that way, future generations would have a piece of the past and know their ancestors. Pretty cool.

The bone we used either cow femur or tibia, which is still pretty bitchin’ for carving. He gave us the template of our choice and we got to filing and sanding away. Here’s another great tradition: if you craft or fashion something ornamental, it is bad form to keep it for yourself. So Rachel and I made bone necklaces for each other. She got the spiral I made and I received an awesome fish hook. Though I have never been the crafty type, I take a certain pride when I look at that spiral chunk of bone and exclaim, “dude, I freakin’ made that!”