We managed to find the "silver shaman" that we met last year in Antigua, before we left. If you don't remember the story, we were approached by this older gentleman, holding these incredible necklaces. We had unfortunately just gotten some very sad news about a friend and kindly declined. But after gathering ourselves we both realized, wait those necklaces were incredible.
Maybe 5 minutes had passed. We looked all over the town square and the gentleman was gone. We could not get these necklaces off our minds.
The next day we returned to search again and asked some locals about the man. We were told he was only there on Friday and Saturday. We managed to find him on a side street tucked in a doorway. We purchased almost all he had. Went home and did some research.
We found out these beautiful coin necklaces were called Chachales. It turns out these necklaces are hard to find. They were the gorgeous adornment of a native Guatemalan woman’s beautiful handwoven huipil. They were worn by the elite Mayans who could afford them. The large medallion on most of them is an old large coin or a re-cast of an old coin surrounded by small round réales and animal charms, called dijes (pronounced d-hey) soldered to the large coin. Most have two larger dijes on the left and right side of the medallion at the top. The metal is not silver. (As a matter of fact, old Guatemalan coins from after about 1896 were minted in nickel and marked “niquel.”)
THIS ITEM WILL SHIP MID MARCH WHEN WE RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES. Do not hesitate to reach out with any questions!
