Harvesting Connection: Dentalium and the two ‘Indian’ worlds

As a Hindu Indian, I grew up believing the same thing — that an east-facing home is auspicious, blessed by Surya, the sun god, every day. While you can find every major religion practiced in India today, Hinduism is the Indigenous religion of the land, with roots stretching back more than 4,000 years.

That moment sparked a realization for me: the two groups of people called “Indians” — one descended from the Indus Valley, the other labeled by colonizers — share more than just a name. There are real echoes between our worlds.

As I sat with that thought, another connection surfaced: dentalium — a highly prized item among Indigenous people in North America is exported, in vast quantities, from India.

I returned to my ancestral homeland to capture the story of the fishermen in South India who harvest dentalium — the first time I spent in the coastal fishing villages.

In India, much like the Indigenous tribes in North America, identity is local first. We don’t just say, “I’m Indian.” We say, “I’m Tamil,” “I’m Punjabi,” or “I’m Bengali.” Every region has its own language, food, wedding traditions, and even its own way of wrapping a sari, the traditional clothing worn by Indian women.

My roots are in Gujarat, a state in the western tip of India that juts into the Arabian Sea. I’m Gujarati, and we speak Gujarati.

Ironically, nobody cares that I’m Gujarati when I’m in northern India. They want to know if I’m an NRI (Non-Resident Indian), someone of Indian descent who lives abroad.

But it was different when I was with the fishermen in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

When I said, “I’m American,” they weren’t satisfied. They would draw a circle around my face, saying, “But you look like you could be from India.” They wanted to know I was Gujarati. By naming my ancestral land, I was being claimed — a fellow Indian, even if from far away.

And yet, here’s where the paths of the two Indians diverge.

Dentalium — the delicate white shells treasured by Indigenous people in the U.S. and Canada — is virtually unknown across India. Honestly, most Indians probably wouldn’t even recognize the word. Only a handful of fishermen and traders down south know how valued dentalium is on the other side of the world.

And that contrast stayed with me.

In Hinduism, we believe the divine lives in every living and nonliving thing, including ourselves, and that everything must be treated with respect. I see that same reverence in Native culture, especially in how they care for the land.

Capturing the story of dentalium felt like bridging two worlds: one in which my own people might not place any particular value on the shells and one on the other side of the world in which the shells are deeply valued by people called by the same name — Indian.

Namaste*

*Sanskrit greeting interpreted to mean “the divine in me honors the divine in you.”