Featured Help With Necklace Maybe Kuchi?

Hi All,
I've had this for a few weeks, would work on untangling it for an hour or so each day and finally it is completely untangled
From doing a photo search, Kuchi choker necklaces show up, some look similar to this one. It is very heavy, 10"L and no marks that I can see. The last photo shows a close-up of the stones, some have imperfections in them - is it possible to figure out what they are? Any idea on age?
Any information is appreciated
thanks for looking

 

@Any Jewelry ........

 

Indian, Afghan, Pakistani ... one of 'em. The "stones" look glued in. Metal looks like nickel.

 

@Any Jewelry

 

Kuchi or Pashtun, the two are related. It is very nice, with those pretty rosettes of set stones.

Yes, the turquoise glass(?) cabs are glued, the carnelians are prong-set.

A different type of alloy, probably with a small percentage of silver.

 

Wonderful, thank-you AJ The turquoise does look like glass. I imagine a person would need a strong neck to be able to wear one for any length of time, this is very heavy.

 

A lot of ethnic jewellery is too heavy to wear, I don't know how they do it. Some of it is for weddings only, but just imagine wearing that for a day when you're a young girl.

 

Well, in poor agricultural societies girls and women are used to hard physical labour. And are physically very strong. It is one of the criteria when getting married - how strong the girl is, the more, the better. Because she is expected to do a lot of hard physical work and has to be strong. It was like this in my country too, sometime ago.

 

Girls out here working those neck muscles to prepare for the wedding day yoke.

Fashion is not about comfort. You wear a piece only a few hours for an event, or you train your body to get used to it as a regular adornment. Either way you look stunning.

 

Joking aside, those women do have strong neck muscles because from very small age they carry buckets of water on their shoulders at long distances, usually on а carrying pole. From personal experience I can say that it really makes your shoulders cry if you are not used to it No surprise that they can carry necklaces like this for a long time.

Western girls will indeed have to undergo special training if they want to wear it

 

Oh, I was completely serious.

The ladies who work those necks are welcome to see my stiletto-wearin' calves! Fashion is pain...and skill!

 

In Asia water is usually carried on the head, often stabilised by one hand. They rarely use yokes, like in Europe, but they do develop a good posture and good neck muscles.

But we have to remember that some brides in some parts of Asia have hardly reached puberty.

Western girls used to carry yokes, just like Bulgarian and other European girls, but yokes train the shoulder and back muscles rather than the neck muscles.
At least if you carry it the right way, the way yokes are carried in the West (see pic below).

Carrying yokes only trains neck muscles if you bend over and balance the yoke on your neck rather than carry it on your shoulders, like you should. Frankly I can't see anyone doing that for long.
Western girls do often train their posture (and neck muscles) with books on their head. I can recommend it for Bulgarian girls who are only used to yokes on their shoulders.

And how is this for Western girls carrying yokes, an archetypal image of a Dutch girl:



Btw, I would love to see Iva wear this for a few days, like Yemenite Jewish brides did, and this type of weight is exactly what I meant before :

 

Any, everything you said is correct with the remark that Western (incl. Bulgarian) girls since long ago don't bring water in buckets as there are water supply systems even in the smallest villages, at least for the last 80 years. While in Afghanistan and in other poor agricultural (as opposed to industrialized) societies they still do it, and not only it but various other types of hard physical labour. No matter how exactly it is done as a result they are physically very strong, all parts of their bodies. Their way of living requires from them to be otherwise they cannot survive in those conditions. So I still don't see a problem for them to wear heavy ethic jewelry. While for Western women I do see a problem, they long ago stopped doing hard physical work. IMO, there is difference if you go to the fitness for exercise a couple of times a week and if you do what women from poor countries do from dawn to dusk 7 days a week.

What I said about Bulgaria is based on accounts from 80-100 years ago and some childhood memories, also quite long ago when I was given my Granny's kobilitsa to try. I guess in Holland it was even earlier when they did it. Now no woman does it any more, you cannot even find those carrying poles except in museums and occasionally at flee markets for crazy money. Same for old buckets, ethnic robes, ethnic belt buckles, head adornments, etc. Bulgarian carrying poles are specific, here is a photo of kobilitsa (BG carrying pole) with buckets


It is a big trend here with authentic ethnic items, may be it is the same in the other developed countries, don't know.

 

Hahaha, I would never do it, it was soooo long ago when I used to do hard field work at my Granny's, and mind that I was spared from the hard parts, it was more with educational purposes rather than to do real job.

 

The girls themselves say it is very heavy, and some even pass out. But they wear it because it is tradition. It enforces identity, and shows off the family's wealth, so it is what they are supposed to do. Mind you, in Yemen families could also rent jewellery for a wedding.

Not really, I remember seeing them used in the mid-1960s, and probably even later. So that is less than 60 years ago.
The Netherlands has some very traditional regions and villages. Not backward, but people who prefer tradition. Of course tradional societies do adapt and change, but only if they feel the need to.

This photo was taken in the Netherlands in 1953:

 

Well, I don't recall anyone in my Granny's village using kobilitsa 40 years back although every house kept it and the buckets. They would just open the tap for household needs I recall going to a spring with wicker bottles for drinking water although the water from the tap was perfectly ok for drinking. Granny was just convinced that spring water was more tasty.
There were (and still are) wells here and there around the village but they were used for the animals and for washing up on the spot after work, without water being carried home. The wells had a bucket on a chain that was rolled down to the bottom and then pulled back full of water. Like this


Well, I don't say that Afghan women or Yemeni women are very happy to wear kilos of ethnic jewelry, I just say that they are much more prepared to do it than Western women because of their way of living. And can endure it without much problem.

 

Pretty much like wells throughout Europe, although around here in eastern Brabant we have another type of well. Ours is a bit like Hungarian wells, with a diagonal beam and no roof but only a lid on the well.

 

Granny was right about the water. Spring water doens't have all the treatment chemicals in it, and after all those years she had the antibodies to deal with any standard bacteria in it. That is, provided the Communists hadn't accidentally poisoned the well with chemical runoff or other nasties.