3 little ?fetishes and ? African bead bracelets.

Am pretty sure the bracelets are African, anyone have any idea from what region, also the 3 little bead skulls with what appears to be real bone, Are they considered tourist pieces, one has been made into a brooch, the little tortoise is made from some kind of a thicker stronger thread, is the a possibility it could be quill, Is quill pliable? thanks again and I wont go clearing out any more until after the Christmas season,

 

knowing where in africa bead work came from....is damn near impossible.
skull bone carvings ....are also hard to pin down.
i have one on a strand of blue beads ....and i can't even make an educated guess , even though it came from Vancouver.

 

Thank you, do you think the bracelets are African,they are lined with what appears to be sinew, oh dear on the skull heads. is it safe to say they are Southwestern or Native or are they African also??

 

Are there supposed to be pictures somewhere? I don't see any.

 

sorry I THOUGHT i had posted pics, here goes

 

hope these are visible thanks

 

They are, nursenancy!

Not that I can help, I was just confused about how Komo could help much without them.

 

The bracelets are sure African in style, but where they really came from is anyone's guess. The animal heads I'm curious about; I have one of those here myself with no idea what it really is. I'd figured deer vertebra souvenir piece as Native American, but didn't know which group did it. Maybe none of them?

 

The bracelets are African, from Kenya.

The little beaded cow heads are Zuni, from New Mexico. They were originally made as scarf slides, like for boy scout scarfs, but probably most aren't used for that. They are beaded over a sheep vertebrae.

 

Don't be confused.....I didn't help all that much ....

 

Tiny baskets and miniature items are sometimes made by the Tohono O'Odham from horse-hair, and the tortoise could well be one of those. Made for sale to tourists and collectors.
The horse hair looks similar to thread, but coarser and stronger.
The technique is similar to the larger coiled pine-needle baskets made by various native and non-native people.
However, I am by no means an expert on baskets.

 

it looks like a pine needle turtle....
the horse hair minis are usually black beige and white,,,with a dab of rust...

 

I would certainly defer to the opinion of others on this; it does appear to be a coiled item like pine-needle baskets. Dimensions weren't given, but I figured it was 2" long or less, and pine needles aren't flexible enough to make an item that small, I think; nor would pine-needles fit the description that the material is like "thick strong thread."

So I was thinking one could make a small coiled item from horsehair.
But what do I know.

 

I've seen dozens of those turtles....across the river on the Mohawk Reserve.
They're very traditional.

 

The Tohono O'Odham horsehair turtles are also very traditional; dimensions might help; here's a sweetgrass Mohawk turtle; 6 1/2" long...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/TURTLE-shaped-coiled-sweetgrass-basket-by-Paul-St-John-Mohawk-/370974381960

or another sweetgrass one described as "small" at
http://nativedirect.com/products/small-sweet-grass-turtle

And here is a Tohono O'Odham horsehair turtle, 1 1/8" long: http://www.brownstrading.com/product-p/e17mbk.htm
or another at
https://www.etsy.com/listing/193040143/4-vintage-native-american-papago-tohono

I was assuming the photo was of a smaller item, as it seemed comparable in size to the vertebrae, and the beaded vertebrae I've seen were fairly small.
I could tell horsehair from sweetgrass in person, but not so easily from a photo perhaps. I've seen Tohono O'Odham horsehair turtles fairly frequently in Seattle; often less than an inch across, and looking very much like NurseNancy's, but am less familiar with the Mohawk turtles.

 

Well it's likely sweetgrass, that over time changes from green to brown.....

 

Same technique, in any case.