ibeam, I would suggest the following:
- a) leave it alone
- b) carve a small piece of wood to match the rest of the wood and glue
- c) glue a piece of wood and then wrap the piece with some twisted silver wire
Here is one of the pictures missing in the post that I think Spunger is refering (thanks Spunger). It is a pic of some of the work I did for Ian on his barong - I created a silver cockatoo head that was missing on his barong: