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Make a Red Gourd Shakere
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6

Make a “Snake” with Cowrie Shells Gourd Shekere

  1. Put an Image on the Gourd

  2. Drill the Cowrie Shell Beads

  3. Knot on Shell Beads (Noise makers)

  4. Cut Bottom Hole Add Knots, Perform Winter Solstice Rituals

  5. Add Feathers

  6. It Flies


Make an Gourd Rattle with Black Walnut Knockers

  1. Prepare Black Walnut Beads
  2. Preparing the Design, Cutting and Pyrography
  3. Coloring the Rattle
  4. Attaching the Walnuts
  5. Add the Feathers and Finish the Rattle


A Foraged Foxtail
 : How to Make a Gourd and Cowrie Shell Shekere - Kitty Motif :

kitty shekere - gourd with cowrie shells

One of my Rhythm Workers Union friends saw the parti-colored snake shekere with cowrie shells and loved it. She asked me to make her a shekere. I washed gourds, I puzzled gourds, and the first gourd I tried to make into a shekere for her broke so bad I had to abandon it. But I went back to the pile o' gourds and started again, this time with a “maranka” gourd. They are kind of warty with a long dipper handle.

mankara gourd - not yet cleaned
The Kitty Shaker
I've broken down making the kitty shaker into steps. Maybe you should try it. =)

Ingredients
You will need
one cured and cleaned mankara gourd (or other hard shelled gourd)
leather dye (brown)
hemp twine
money cowrie shells (or other noisemaking beads)
and tools:
a dremel tool
An exacto knife saw
beading pliers or hemostats
drill
craft vise
scissors
woodburning (pyrography) tool



  1. Getting Nice Clean Gourds
, the first step in the Red Gourd project. Use your back arrow from there to return to this instruction list.



  1. Making Beads out of the Money Cowrie Shells
This step is detailed in the Snake Shakere, drilling holes in the money cowrie shells. Use your back arrow from there to return to this instruction list.



  1. Drawing the kitty face on the gourd with pyrography

If you need to look at the other gourd pages for pyrography - you can. The textture of the surface made it more difficult to follow a plan but had its benefit in making the crookedy whiskers.



  1. Adding Tiger Stripes: using leather dye on the gourd

The design is put onto the gourd using leather dye, it is treated with wax.



  1. Attach the Cowrie Shell Beads
Hemp beading twine with simple netting



All Finished

 : Links/Sponsors :

Make a Shakere is sponsored by Fertility Futures, a firm focused on helping make families possible. Many would be parents are unable to realize their dreams of a family with children due to fertility issues. Fertility Futures brings medical specialists and counselors to bear on these difficult problems, helping couples with a range of solutions from fertility therapy through the use of surrogates to carry a child through pregancy for a family. In order to support this service, Fertility Futures also solicits egg donors for its ova donation program. People who face challenges in becoming parents, or healthy women who are willing to become egg donors should consider visiting Fertility Futures.

Rhythm Workers Union my inspiration for all things rhythmic

Guerilla Poetry Insurgency some wonderful people who understand the power and importance of the spoken word
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