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HOW AND WHEN JEWELLERY CAUGHT ON

by James Clarke

Archaeologist Brian Stewart of Wet and cold though the rst dress was, the Ug now found himself having to chase sabre-
the University of Michigan and idea was a smash hit. toothed cats, lions and other non-edibles, We are located at Samrand Business Park, 59 Landmarks Avenue,
simply to extract the teeth and claws with
his colleagues have found ostrich What has this got to with jewellery? I am which to adorn his beloved. Just as jewellery
eggshell beads in southern Africa about to tell you. costs today, so nding one’s own often cost Kosmosdal, Centurion, 0157.
that date back at least 33 000 an arm and leg.
years. According to the American Until the dress was invented, the only places
Proceedings of the National Aca- a woman had to hang or attach adornments - This pursuit of dangerous and uncooperative
demy of Sciences, other examples of and oh, how she loved adornments - were her animals naturally instilled a certain amount of
unwillingness on the part of the hunter and
this form of jewellery may date back ears, nose, lips, hair, neck, waist, upper arms, so women had to become more conniving.
lower arms, wrists, 10 ngers, 10 toes, ankles,
200 000 years. calves and thighs.
A typical female-to-female cave conversation
have often pondered why women like But ostrich egg beads were not enough. might have gone: “I’ve told Ug that if he
jewellery. If I could discover what it is brings me back a pair of tiger teeth earrings
I then somebody could start working on an With the advent of the dress she now had I’ll make him his favourite dish - warthog
antidote. new places on which to attach pretty baubles. placenta garnished with caterpillars. If he
fails, he’ll have left-overs from last night and
There comes a time in every man’s life when It needs very little stretch of the imagination the night before.”
he has bought his wife just about everything to understand how adornments must
she needs ... a scrubbing board, a carrot grater, have dramatically reshaped relationships “What did you cook last night?”
spanners, drain cleaners and so on. And so, as between men and women. Up until that
they get older, men are forced to start buying point, the primeval hunter, Ignatius Ug (not “My grandmother.”
jewellery, the sure- re stand-by to please the his real name), would have taken an interest
little woman. It is a sad stage of life. in animals mainly to get at their innermost Modern women have become even more
being (i.e. their liver and sirloin). Now, with inventive about jewellery. A London store
It has been said (Beano 1951) that women, the advent of jewellery, things became more o ers live, jewel-encrusted beetles which can
long before they wore clothes, were probably serious. be tethered to a dress by gold chains. Some
satis ed with adorning themselves with women use miniature dogs for displaying
ochre, mud and stu . Clothes came in Amelia-Anne Ug, seeing her neighbour, their surplus diamonds and older women
when the earliest couturiers hit on the idea Gareldene Fothergill-Onk wearing a warthog have the ultimate adornment draped over
of attening out animal skins, scraping all tusk through her cute little nose, would their forearm - a toy boy. Even he wears
the blood and fat o the inside (couturiers, want something equally chic, if not chicker. earrings and gold chains.
from the word go, were ever fussy) and then Geraldine might well have ashed the odd
making a hole for the female to shove her lion tooth too.
head through.
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32 • Issue 2 2020 • BLUE VALLEY NEWS