Meanings of ethnic jewellery

What is ‘ethnic’ jewellery?

Published Jan 12, 2024

It’s a popular term: ethnic jewellery. You’ll find it widely on the Internet, in fashion magazines and in books on jewellery. But what is ethnic jewellery, exactly? And how may we understand it without lumping pretty much all of the world under one global umbrella term? In this article, I’ll give you my personal take on what ethnic jewellery is.

Ethnic jewellery: jewellery of people

‘Ethnic’ comes from the Greek word ‘ethnos’, meaning ‘people’ in the sense of an ethnic group. [1] Ethnography and ethnology stem from the same root. Ethnic jewellery is the jewellery of a particular people or community.

Ethnic jewellery encompasses a vast array of adornments. All of these tell a unique story of the cultural, religious, and social fabric of the communities that create and wear it. So the way I see it, if you want to know what ethnic jewellery is, its meaning for the specific people that made these pieces and to whose culture they belong is central to that understanding.

Just to manage expectations: I’m not going into the discussion around the use of the term ‘ethnic’ itself here – I’ll do that in another article, as there is quite some consideration to be given to this term. But that article is not this one.

In this article, I’d like to focus on how we should understand ethnic jewellery. What is that? Actually, it is a lot of things bundled up in one term, so let’s go over those!

Ethnic jewellery: communities of origin

For its communities of origin, ethnic jewellery serves as a powerful symbol of identity and continuity. Each piece carries with it the collective memory of a people – their traditions, rituals, and historical milestones.

Sounds like a large claim, but is very true: jewellery is a powerful historic source, you just have to know how to read it.

That is also why it is so important to its community of origin. Wearing one’s own ethnic jewellery is a clear affirmation of identity: this is who we are.

That meaning itself is also getting increasingly watered down. The variety of styles and types within one community has dwindled significantly over the past 60 years or so. Many original pieces of jewellery are no longer known to the communities that once wore them, and that holds true all over the world.

An example is Dutch traditional jewellery: I am Dutch myself, but not from either region the jewellery you see above is from. Clicking on the images will enlarge them, so you can take in the details.

I can’t place the tiny differences in decoration of veil pins, necklace clasps and head adornment to the level of detail and origin that my grandmother would easily have identified. I still recognize it as the ethnic jewellery of my community, but not as accurately as previous generations.

Ethnic jewellery: its meaning in its cultural context

Reading ethnic jewellery is closely connected to its cultural context. In fact, that is essential: jewellery is created by people, for people, and if we want to understand ethnic jewellery, its cultural context is where to start.

Because ethnic jewellery is deeply intertwined with cultural practices, representing rites of passage, forming a woman’s financial assets, embodying her religious beliefs, and signaling her social status. The patterns, colours and materials used in jewellery may signify a person’s age, marital status, or even their role within the community.

And those may be very local communities: the language of silver ethnic jewellery may be understood in just one region only. An example are the engraved discs worn in the Bahariya Oasis, Egypt. You’ll see one of those above: click to enlarge the photo to see this piece in full. Their meaning is specific to this oasis, the pieces were never produced outside this place, and their significance remains somewhat of a mystery that I tried to solve here.

Ethnic jewellery: its meaning in rites of passage

Ethnic jewellery also plays an active role in specific life events. There are jewellery pieces which are created for these moments, such as weddings, coming-of-age ceremonies, or even funerals. Just think of the elaborate mourning jewellery of the 18^th and 19^th century Western world.

More on wedding jewellery is explained in these posts:

The meskia – a wedding jewel from the Maghreb

These adornments accompany their wearers through significant transitions. In that sense, they serve as tangible markers of the individual’s journey within the community. An example are the three silver hair ornaments shown above (click to enlarge them): these were worn by children in Oman. Their wear is specified further for boys, who would wear the hand-shaped ornaments, and girls, who would wear the circular ornament.

Jewellery pieces like these often operate in sync with dress, hairstyle and body aesthetic like tattoos: here again, jewellery always needs to be seen in its context.

An example is how in many cultures there is a great difference between dress and adornment of an unmarried girl and that of a married woman. These differences are presented in more detail in these articles:

Omani hair ornaments – between girl and woman

The Palestinian wuqaya – between girl and woman

A married woman will sport a different hairstyle and wear much more jewellery. That is also because of her dowry gifts, and that brings me to another aspect of ethnic jewellery: its value.

Ethnic jewellery: its value and financial meaning

The use of jewellery as a way to store capital goes back to the ancient civilizations. It takes effort for us, living in this day and age, to imagine anything other than banks, credit cards, and paper currency as main carriers of financial value (ok, and there’s designer handbags, but the jury is still out on their long term value…!).

But for several millennia, gold and silver jewellery was the perfect way to safeguard one’s wealth: it’s portable and can be melted down when needed. Serving as capital and asset is another important capacity of ethnic jewellery.

The way this takes material form is different for each culture, tribe and region. It can be adding coins to dress and adornment, such as in the example of the face veil above, or in wearing heavy and large pieces of jewellery. Those are just two examples, but you get the idea!

This financial aspect of jewellery is presented in these articles:

The Spanish pillar dollar – a forgotten coin

Ethnic jewellery: what is it?

As you see, there is no single definition of what ethnic jewellery means: this entire blog and all courses are dedicated to jewellery as material culture of people, and it’s still only scratching the surface.

Ethnic jewellery is many things within its own cultural context. Most of all, it is jewellery that is specific to a culture, region, tribe or other form of society and which distinguishes them from others. It is a visual form of cultural identity, like dress and costume. As such, it is highly specific, instead of a general container term to lump exotic-looking accessories into.

This post will be continued with other thoughts on ethnic jewellery (such as Can I wear ethnic jewellery?) and alternative terms we may employ – stay tuned!

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References

[1] See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethnos

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