>>2618489 pb
>Guatemalan Chachal
https://www.revuemag.com/2009/02/guatemalas-unique-chachales/
A second word is chachal, Quiché for necklace. The evolution of chachales in Guatemala is a fascinating tale of history, economics and anthropology. At the time of the Conquest, Guatemala’s indigenous prized red coral as component in necklaces. As easily recoverable near-shore coral became scarce, sharp traders, chiefly in Europe, manufactured substitutes and introduced them into Guatemala as trade goods. These were almost but not always red, apparently to satisfy taste here and elsewhere.
Red beads have long held a certain fascination not just here but around the world. As many as 2,000 years ago in early Aleppo in modern-day Syria, red carnelian stones were fashioned into beads worn by donkeys and said to protect the rider from the evil eye. They were subsequently made of red glass. The word morphed into cornaline d’aleppo, and came to Guatemala as perhaps the most famous trade bead that was once in common use in Guatemala.
Still manufactured today, chiefly in the Italian glass-making centers at Murano near Venice, red glass beads with a white center or “heart” made their way into Guatemalan chachales in place of coral. Hudson Bay Trading Company records in Canada show that 1.6 of these beads, also called white hearts, were exchangeable for a single beaver pelt.
Since coral and then red beads were a symbol of wealth and status, it’s not surprising that silver coins, epitomizing wealth in Spanish colonial times, also formed part of the visual display of wealth in Guatemalan indigenous chachales. The oldest of these are the macacos or cut pieces of silver nipped from Spanish colonial silver coinage, perforated and incorporated into necklaces. These were followed by perforated whole silver coins from around the actual and former Spanish dominions of Mexico, Chile, Peru and occasionally Bolivia and Colombia, all sites of Spanish and subsequent mines and mints.