Puka shell

Puka shells originally were naturally occurring bead-like objects which can be found on some beaches in Hawaii. Each one was the beach-worn apex of a cone snail shell, a kind of seashell from a sea snail. Puka is the Hawaiian word for "hole" and refers to the naturally occurring hole in the middle of these rounded and worn shell fragments. These natural beads were made into necklaces.

Numerous inexpensive imitations are now widely sold as puka shell necklaces. The majority of these are not made from cone shells, but from other shells, or even from plastic. In addition, some strings of beads are currently sold that are made from cone shells, but the beads in these necklaces were not formed by natural processes. They were instead worked by hand from whole shells using pliers to break the shell down to the needed part, and then subjected the rough results to tumble finishing, in order to give each bead more or less smooth edges in imitation of the natural wear and tear a shell receives when tumbled in the surf for long periods of time.