The Cultural History of Earrings

When we look at the outline of a head, our gaze is immediately drawn towards its face, framed by earrings. Hoops, rings, studs, cylinders, discs, pendants, earplugs, temple ornaments earrings come in every shape and size. The original purpose of earrings was protective rather than ornamental: as natural openings, ears, and the audi- tory canal, are threatened by intrusive spirits. Our rim, outer ear and lobe may be pierced in many places. As the seat of hearing, ears enable man to fend off dangers of the bush and forest. Lastly, ears are the vehicle for aural knowledge, vital to peoples who do not transmit information through the written word. Since our earliest times, earrings have served as accessories to seduction, and craftsmen worldwide have unleashed their imagination to create them, using a wide variety of materials: those of their natural environments, first and foremost, with usage of flowers and grasses, horn and feathers, wood, shells and ivory, and stones and metals that have been found in lodes and alluvial deposits. Adventurous caravaneers and sailors set out in search of further exotic materials. At first, techniques were rudimentary; though dexterity and expertise was required. Polishing and piercing of stones and shells is an arduous process. Someof the earliest gold creations was hammered into shape, so was the wire. Then goldsmiths began to cast their models in sand, or by the lost wax process. Forms were further enriched by repousse work, and chasing. Filigree and granulation are due to continuous refinement of soldering techniques. As a finishing touch, metal might be enameled and mounted with gemstones. Westerners have used the term “barbarian” to describe those being “benighted” enough to follow customs different from their own; yet clearly there are no “geographical savages”, only men whose wealth of differences must be respected’. For the Kikuyu people of Kenya, wearing of numerous earpieces entitles them to respect, as long as their earlobes are not torn’. The statues of Buddha, the enlightened one, show him with very long ears. Seeking truth through asceticism, he renounced the emblems of his rank, which included heavy gold ear-pendants, and his distended lobes have thus become a symbol of wisdom. Offered as gifts by the family of the suitor in Indonesian archipelagos, earpieces serve to seal unions; among the Masai, earflaps of beaded leather proclaim the status of the married woman. Worn by men in the Philippines and among the Naga headhunters, ear ornaments tell of their prowess in war and hunting. Generally speaking, earpieces are worn in pairs, particularly by women. In Tibet men often wear just a single earring or two of differing type. In this work, only one earring of pairs will be sometimes shown, thus allowing space to illustrate more types of earrings. In many places, a period of rapid decline began as early as the post-war period; nonetheless some earpieces dating from that time, or even later, may be regarded as having cultural merit, provided they have been made by peoples who wear them, or have been incorporated into their culture and are generally worn. The Olmec Crvirization, which flourished from 1300-400 B.C., is regarded as the mother culture in central America. Earpieces in jadeite and obsidian show a remarkable mastery of the art of stone carving. People working on gold, the earliest signs of which appear in Peru around 1500 B.C., spread from the south to the north. In precolumbian America, wearing of ear ornaments in precious metals was the prerogative of chiefs, warriors and shamans. Resistance to advancing of the Incas was put up by the Chimu confederation, on the north coast of Peru. In the middle of the thirteenth century, at the height of their power, the sovereigns established their capital at Chan Chan, a city renowned for its splendour; its goldsmiths, regarded as the finest of their time, produced a profusion of metal objects. This kingdom exported gold and silver ornaments throughout Peru and beyond. The anthropomorphic ceramics of the Chimu and Moche cultures show figures whose ears are ornamented with discs and studs. At the time of the Inca empire, members of the aristocracy were known as Orejones, or big ears, because of their ornaments’. The Tairona of Colombia produced remarkable works in gold and silver, most of them dating from the centuries before the Spanish conquest. Their craftsmen had a perfect mastery of repousse, casting by the lost wax process and hammering. Originally, the Mapuche or Araucanians of Chile wore beads made out of stone or shell; later, they borrowed certain gold-working techniques from the Incas, while putting up fierce resistance to their domination. With the Conquistadors came silver coins, from which they made their jewels, earrings being among the very earliest. In 1791 Ivan Ignacio Molina mentions “silver earrings, square in form”, whose continued use is confirmed by Bernardo Philippi. Originally hammered with stone, precious metals did not get casted in sand until the nineteenth century.