Vintage Navajo or Pueblo Jaclas of Hand Rolled Turquoise and Shell

The more you fall in love with collecting Native American jewelry, the more likely you are to find yourself looking for your own pair of jaclas (or joclas) to hang on an array of coral or heishi necklaces and to wear as earrings.

Sure you could buy a necklace with the jaclas already attached, but it's more fun to eventually start collecting your own and trying them out with different necklace combinations. 

Traditionally, jaclas were earrings - that's why the beaded strands of turquoise appear in pairs. Navajo and Pueblo maidens would actually tie the beaded strings through holes in their ears. These significant turquoise adornments actually predated the arrival of silver, so there were no silver earring wires from which to hang the joclas back in the earliest days.

Once Navajo and Pueblo maidens were married, they would hang the earrings onto necklaces like those you see that have become so popular today. 

These vintage hand rolled turquoise and shell joclas are lovely. Beautifully handmade, they're strung on string, the old way. As you run your fingers down the turquoise, it just feels special. They measure 4" long. Each little turquoise bead is about 1/8" in diameter, but they're hand done, so they're not uniformly shaped. 

You can hang these on a Navajo or Pueblo necklace of shell or coral or turquoise, or you could have these put onto ear wires so that you can wear them the traditional way as very long and beautiful earrings. 

In some of the photos, they're attached to a necklace so you can see how pretty they'd look with it. They don't come with the necklace, but you can purchase it separately.