Speaking of exotic low-tech ways to drill pearls...
Whatever it takes to use a twist drill on pearl never ceases to amaze me, and not in the very least the fact that this type of mind torture (or Zen discipline, whichever way you want to look at it) is still done. Phew! Could barely muster the patience to make camp fire with a twist drill: even that is hard to keep steady. It must take bloody months of drilling dried peas
to get the pearls right.
Word goes around (in press, and among the traveled jewelers in town too) that at least seed pearls are still drilled this way in India, and that the very small 'Suna' keshi are still being drilled with a bow. Any truth in that? It's head spinning just to think of it!