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Grafting the oyster is a delicate process and takes a lot of skill and training to learn how to do it properly. Arii, of Patamure Pearl Farm in Manihi, specializes in this art. Below are
pictures of Arii showing us the grafting process. The first step is to take an oyster that has matured from a spat and graft inside of it a ball made out of the Mississippi mussel
plus a small bit of tissue from a oyster. During this time, the ball acts as an irritant and the oyster will secrete a pearl substance called nacre in an attempt to isolate the
intruder. The oyster stays in the lagoon for 18 months.
At the end of the 18 months, the oysters are taken out of the lagoon. The oyster is gently held open and Arii carefully pulls out the black pearl. Some oysters will have rejected the
ball and these are known as keshis, which are irregularly formed pearls. Others will have created a black pearl. Arii cuts a piece of tissue off of another oyster and then grafts back
into the pearl the piece of tissue and the ball of a Mississippi mussel and closes back the oyster. The living oyster is then put back into the lagoon for another eighteen months in the hopes
that another black pearl will grow within it. This process can be repeated around five times.
The pearl farmer carefully tends the oysters to make sure they are getting the right nutrients. The color of the black pearl reflects the color of the mantle on the
inside of the oyster. Not all black pearls produced are black. The pearls can be black, grey, creamy, peacock green, rainbow, eggplant, blue, pink, golden, olive, pistachio.
The peacock green and the eggplant colors are the pearls most sought after.
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