Wounaan Tagua Nut Carvings
The Wounaan Indian men who live in the Darien Rainforest of Panama have been carving animals on tagua nuts for more than two decades.
The Wounaan men carve out animal images on tagua nuts with chisels and then paint them. They often glue the nuts together to create a bigger working area so that they can depict animals in a hunting scene.
The tagua nut , also known as vegetable ivory, is a very desirable substitute for elephant or hippo ivory. It is a seed of native palm trees found from Panama to Bolivia.
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