Retailer Original Embera-Chamì Okama,traditional beaded dress-necklace, tribal necklace, orange necklace, unique piece, handmade, huge collar.

Okama, traditional beaded collar, made by Embera Chami tribe from Colombia.

The Embera Chami people, already displaced from their original land, traditional life-style and now living retailer in Bogotà, they usually survived selling their amazing creations in the streets of the city. During the lock down (which in Colombia was really long) they found themselves in a terrible situation, not knowing how to eat and pay rent so they were forced to live under plastic sheeting in a park in Bogota. We decided to enriched our shop with those collars because they are amazing art pieces and also because we felt we had to help them somehow. We are very happy to have succeeded and to fill our shop with such beauty.

One of The Embera Chami crafts is weaving with beads. They describe their work more as an ancestral thought than as an art.  Mothers have taught daughters, generation after generation, the techniques, the meaning of each color, the signs and the drawings, creating the cultural legacy through the art of weaving.  The most appreciated piece is the Okama, a necklace with a high symbolic content and of exclusive feminine use.
Okama (“path that runs the neck") is a necklace that gives distinction to the woman who carries it, telling her history and role in the community. The girls receive their first Okama with their first period.

Everypiece is different and unique.

This is a fair-trade item.


Worldwide shipping.