Pendants

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The pendant type jewelry adornment is quite popular in Africa. It extends wear-ability in that it allows a piece to be worn long or short, on a rope or chain, with other jewelry types or by itself, worn every day or on special occasions, inside clothing or out, and so forth. Many Africans find this jewelry-type adornment, meaningful, cultural, protective, meditative, powerful, healing and of course, beautiful.
Africans usually make pendants with rocks and minerals and collectively refer to them as gemstones. Pendants can also be made with horns, cowrie shells, feathers, clay, leather, and other natural elements. We believe it is the naturalness and proximity to nature that is the appeal. There is also the belief that these natural elements possess powerful, medicinal and other elements that may be useful to wearers.

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According to Chris Pellant, in Smithsonian Handbook, Rocks and Minerals, Published in the United States by Dorling Kindersly, Inc, New York, "Rocks and Minerals are a fundamental part of the earth's crust...Rocks are aggregates of minerals - usually several, but sometimes one or two. Similarly, minerals are either free, uncombined native elements or elemental compounds. Gold, Silver and Copper are metallic native elements..."
Although Africa has huge deposits of rocks and minerals, certain of them appear quite frequently in pendants and other jewelries, and below are how some of them may look in a natural state.
Click the tabs above to learn more about the natural states of rocks and minerals and how they go from an unrefined state to a bead.