Indian Accessories

India’s true culture and heritage rest with its tribal community because the tribal people have preserved the ancient arts and crafts in their proper form while the rest of India had been continuously influenced by globalization.

Ethnic tribal jewelry could be surely included in the preserved craft. India has several types of tribal folks, each differing from one another in many ways and the jewelry created by each is also unique in its own style. They use materials available in the local area to make jewelry that is charming in its rustic and earthy way. They craft their jewelry using primitive tools and its appeal lies in its chunky, unrefined looks. The raw materials like bone, wood, clay, shells, crude metals etc are generally used to make tribal jewelry and the shapes are basic.
The Rajasthan tribes, Banjara, create colorful heavy jewelry and belts that are decorated with shells, metal-mesh, coins, beads and chains. Their very famous silver jewelry, a vast collection of earrings, bracelets, bangles, armlets, anklets, hairpins and necklaces, have a unique oxidized appearance and are usually embellished with tiny silver bells and color stones.
The tribes of Bastar in Madhya Pradesh State produce jewelry of grass, beads and cane and popular traditional ornaments out of silver, wood, glass, peacock feathers, copper and wild flowers. Their women wear chains of one rupee coins.
Meghalaya’s tribes Khasi and Jaintia make a unique type of necklace with thick red coral bead and Garo tribe makes the same with thin fluted stems of glass strung by fine thread.
The tribe of Sikkim called Bhutia has jewelry of gold, silver, coral, turquoise and zee stone.
The picturesque North East Indian state’s tribal jewelry of cane and bamboo is very famous. They also use brass, bone, ivory, silver and gold to make their jewelry that are decorated with colorful beads, blue feathers of birds, green wings of beetles. The tribe called Wanchos creates earrings of glass beads, wild seeds, cane, bamboo and reed while the Karka Gallong tribal women wear heavy iron earrings that are coiled several times, metal coin necklaces and waistbands of leather embedded with stones.
Here special mention should be made about the silver bangles of the Gonda tribe. Some bangles are solid while others are hollow. The jeweler makes the bangle in such a way that once it is worn cannot be removed forever. Bangles for special occasion are removable with a hinge mechanism.

Silver is found in nature as a crude ore. Can you imagine such crude silver could be refined and used to produce some of the most attractive and intricate ornaments that men and women wear on all occasions?

In India, unique and exceptionally beautiful silver ornaments are made in almost all parts of the country. The states Gujarat and Rajasthan craft a special oxidized silver jewelry with a chunky appearance. This popular jewelry is usually studded with various colorful and attractive gemstones. Decorative materials like beads, shells, mirrors, colorful threads, feathers, jute ornamentation, crystals etc are often added to Indian silver jewelry to make it more attractive. Delicate and elegant silver jewelry has also a very significant place among Indian masses.
You can count several reasons for the worldwide popularity of silver jewelry. It has the power to capture the attention of everybody with its lustrous, pristine appearance. Its availability at an affordable price even to an ordinary person is an added attraction. Silver jewelry is much cheaper than gold and platinum jewelry. To sum up, you can see a healthy large customer base for silver with its wide range of gorgeous and intricate ornaments such as necklaces, earrings, pendants, rings, bangles, anklets, hair ornaments, brooches, bracelets etc…etc…
Pure silver is very soft and malleable, but gets damaged very easily. It is approximately 99.9 % silver and is suitable to create only intricate jewelry where its delicate nature is needed. Alloys of silver are used to make much sturdier and stronger jewelry
Important Alloys of Silver
Britannia Silver has 95.84 % silver and 4.16 % copper. Mexican Silver contains 95 % silver and 5 % copper. Sterling Silver consists of 92.5 % silver and 7.5 % copper. Coin Silver is a combination of 90 % silver and 10 % copper and German silver is 80 % silver.
Sterling silver, perhaps, is strong, durable and harder than pure silver and the most suitable silver alloy to make jewelry. It can reflect light very well and it does not wear like silver plating. Silver trinkets can be made either by machine or hand. Machine can make very fine silver jewelry having a better overall finish. It becomes cheaper, as it is produced easily at a very large scale. The advantage with handmade silver jewelry is that it is very unique, and could be customized. Only skilled craftsmen can create silver jewelry with hands and two pieces of jewelry can never be identical.
Keep silver jewelry in a separate pouch or a compartment of the jewelry box to save it from getting scratches and avoid any contact with chemicals like bleach, ammonia and chlorinated water. If got tarnished, silver jewelry could be polished to its original shining.

The people of Gujarat state in India are very much noted for their business skills. Broach, an ancient Gujarat port situated on the Cambay Gulf, was an important bisector of the business route to China, Greece,’ Portugal and Persia. Broach played a significant role in the trade and movement of Mughal jewelry, gold, silver, ivory,

pearl, textiles, gemstones and coral to these foreign countries. This advantage helped Broach gradually develop as a hub for stone cutters, artisans and carvers for nearly thousand years. Even today you can see a sizeable diamond cutting factories in some Gujarati cities like Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar and Navasari. These small scale cutting houses have around 800,000 employees to cut and polish 80—90% of world’s whole diamond production.
As a gesture of gratitude to tribal jewelry and accessories many Gujarati ladies wear key-ring holder an their waist usually made of silver. Jewelry like mangal sutra (a chain tied around the neck by the husband on the wedding day), earrings, necklace, rings and bangles are also very popular among Gujarati women.
Modern jewelry designers have revived the age-old popular tribal jewelry, known as Pachchikam, mostly crafted in Kutch and Gujarat and made this one of the latest fashion statements. The artistic tribal jewelry Pachchikam is slowly replacing gold jewelries. The craftsmen in Gujarat and Kutch prepare this form of jewelry buy cutting semi-precious stones. Some sort of glasswork also is needed in the preparation. Only the few families, who have attained specialization in this type of artwork through their ancestors, can do the fabrication of this jewelry. In the normal course each piece requires 1-2 months to prepare due to the typical climatic constraints.
Other type of traditional jewelry made in Gujarat out of agate, bead and silver are very famous as the exquisite tribal jewelry. Ornaments like ear rings, bangles, nose rings, necklaces etc. are crafted locally and sold out all over the state. Silver-bars are locally procured and later transformed into sheets and wires from which various enchanting silver ornaments are made.
Bhuj, Anjar and Mundra in Kutch district are the main hub of silver jewelry work and Porbandar, Surendranagar, Ahmedabad and Jamnagar in Gujarat also bears a long tradition of supplying excellent silversmiths, who show great skill in creating stunning silver jewelry,. As Tribal Jewelry is a part of Gujarat’s traditional jewelry this work is still done with great care and in styles centuries after centuries using beads, zari, lac etc and this age old tribal ornaments are in great demand among women.