Jewellery and Jewelled Objects of Mizoram

Ornaments are worn as a means of decoration but are also used to communicate the social status and wealth of the wearer and send silent signals to the community. For example, widows remove their earrings and slit the lobes of their ears when they abandon all thoughts of remarrying.

Both men and women of the Lushai tribe are very fond of wearing ornaments. Amber, often described as fossilized resin with a deep red to yellow color, is considered to have magical and medicinal qualities by the Mizos. Traditional ornaments of Mizoram include bead necklaces, thihna, a necklace with big amber beads, thihus, a necklace with smaller beads, the thifen, and the darthi, a necklace of glass beads. Some have aluminum disc spacers that alternate with amber bead. Mizos prize their amber which is of reddish to dark brown in color and has a mottled appearance.

Besides amber, agate, carnelian, and various sorts of bead necklaces are worn. A tiger’s tooth is often hung round the neck as an ornament and is also thought to have magical properties. Some times tufts of white goat’s hair are bound together with red thread. On special festive occasions Mizo women use a head gear called the vakiria. It consists of a bamboo band bedecked with a feather and strings of white Job’s tears seeds alternating with red crab’s eye seeds and decorated at the ends with the iridescent wings of the beetle, which are in metallic green or gold.

Both men and women wear earrings – most men have their ears pierced. and wear either small wooden studs, with flat heads about half an inch in diameter, and colored red, or cornelian suspended by a piece of string. The stones are barrel-shaped and unpolished, the surface being pitted with minute holes and circular marks. These are valued very highly, and are passed on from father to son, or given as daughter’s dowry. Necklaces of beads, pumtek, made of opalised Palmyra palm wood with linear surface patterns are produced in the same manner as those of Tibetan dzi beads, which resemble long barrel shaped beads. These are found among the Kuki Tribe of Mizoram. The earring of Lushai women is quite distinct from the men. It consists of an ivory disc some inch or inch and half in diameter, with a hole in its centre.

The Lushai wear a variety of articles in their hair knot. The most common is a brass two-pronged pin with projecting pointed ends with a head. Skewers of ivory, bone and metal about six or eight inches long are also worn. A wooden or ivory hair comb about three inches long, teeth bamboo is also used. The back of wood is generally crescent-shaped and lacquered red and inlaid.

For ceremonial and festive occasions a picturesque headdress is worn by the girls while dancing. This consists of a chaplet made of brass and colored cane, bedecked with porcupine quills, green feathers of the common parrot, and the glistering wings of green beetles.