‘To get the maireeners we wait for a spring tide and we have to walk into the water up to our waist or knees and pull the maireener shells off (the seaweed). It’s the same as the little rice [rye] shells, they live in the dry seaweed. We fill our buckets up with seaweed then we go and wash the seaweed out and these shells fall in the bottom of the bucket. The toothies we have to pick up one at a time too. So it takes a long time to make one of these necklaces.’

(Muriel Maynard, 2002, from Australian Museums and Galleries Online website ‘Aboriginal shell necklaces’ feature)