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ANCIENT ETHNIC- TRIBAL JEWELRY-Interesting tribal Jewelry from all around the world

Since thousands of years, primitive ethnic tribal jewelry has been used in different forms and reasons all over the world. The main reasons of wearing jewelry were beautification, decoration and body modification. Body modification was prevalent in the Indus valley civilization period and is still in practice in parts of Asia, Africa, Southern America and many western cults. Many Indian religious cultures believe in body modification even today. These modifications are done to honour or as a sacrificial ritual, to some particular deity, among the many Indian deities. Many all over the world, in the past and present, use ancient ethnic tribal jewelry just for simple enhancement of beauty.

Burma tribe long neck jewelry


Tribal ethnic jewelry was worn by both sexes but in different ways, using different body parts .From normal body adornment like rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings etc to the more complicated ones such as tongue rings, lip rings and many types of body piercings have been dominant since ages. Some primitive jewelry is restricted to certain areas only since they have been prevalent as the culture of that particular location. Borla(a conical hair ornament) and Tika (a forehead decorative ornament) are used in India, lip-plates are used in Africa, neck collars are prevalent in Burma, whereas nose ornaments are worn in Africa, Asia and native America. Most tribes have been socially victimised, so they are poor and have used cheaper metals like iron, copper, brass certain alloys and very little gold and silver.
As far as beads are concerned the cheaper variety of semi-precious stones, such as soapstone, Carnelian, onyx, rock crystal, jade, jasper, terracotta and turquoise have been used. Africans use re-cycled glass beads, porcelain, stones and organic materials in abundance. We have found that shells, bones, hair, ivory, animal claws, resin, coloured strings, animal teeth, corals and seeds have been used in creating tribal ethnic jewelry around the globe. Countries known for their intricate bead work are Tibet, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Persia, Indonesia and China.

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