African Crafts Market

African cowrie shells calabash shaker

Size: (S,M, L)

An African musical shaker that is crafted with the Calabash fruit and is used by shaking the base of the shaker that is filled with small beads and then producers a calming shooing sound.

The outside of the musical shaker is covered in African Cowrie shells to give the shaker that little bit of an ethnic feel. These authentic African cowrie calabash items were used as rattles and musical instrument in ceremonies and rituals in the Zulu culture.

Calabash also known as bottle gourd is a delicately flavored, cucurbita family vegetable. It is one of the chief culinary vegetables in many tropical and temperate regions around the world and is found in abundance in rural Africa. It is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable, or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. The fresh fruit has a light-green smooth skin and a white flesh. Rounder varieties are called calabash gourds.

These calabash are often dried out and uses in many different applications as the skin becomes hard and strong and can hold liquids without leaking.

Each musical shaker is an "original" work of art, individually handcrafted, no two are exactly alike which adds to the value of each piece. The original nature of tribal art will be reflected by variances from the musical shakers as shown, each piece of a specific style is similar, but not identical.