Traditional jewelry is adornment made within a community's own customs, often passed down through families and used to show identity, age, marital status or wealth. Older books called it "primitive" or "tribal" jewelry, words that suggest these traditions are simple or frozen in time. They are neither. The examples below, from East Africa, the Sahara, the American Southwest and the Pacific, are living traditions that change with new materials and markets.
Why the words matter
Terms such as "primitive" came from a period when European collectors ranked cultures against their own. Many of the traditions they described involve advanced metalwork, long-distance trade and detailed social codes. Museums and scholars now prefer to name the specific people and place. This page follows that practice. Where a community's meaning for an object is described, it is the commonly published account, and members of the community may explain it differently.
Maasai beadwork
The Maasai live in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. Maasai women make the beadwork, threading small glass beads onto wire or thread to form wide flat collars, earrings, headbands and bracelets. Before glass beads arrived in quantity through trade in the 19th century, ornaments were made from clay, shell, ivory, seeds, bone and copper.
Colors carry associations in commonly cited accounts. Red is often linked with bravery and unity, blue with the sky and water, green with land and growth, white with milk and purity. The patterns and the kind of piece can show a person's age group, whether a woman is married, and whether a man has passed through warrior stages. A bride's wedding collar is a famous example. The beads themselves came largely from European glassworks, including those of Bohemia and Venice, which shows how a tradition can take up imported material and make it its own. Our page on glass in jewelry covers glass beads more broadly.
Tuareg silver
The Tuareg are Berber-speaking peoples of the Sahara and Sahel, in Niger, Mali, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso. Tuareg smiths, known as inadan, belong to a distinct hereditary group within Tuareg society and make jewelry, weapons and tools.
Tuareg jewelry is mostly silver. Many Tuareg historically preferred silver to gold, and the reasons given vary. Silversmiths use lost-wax casting, engraving and stamping to make pendants, rings and bracelets with geometric patterns. The best-known piece is the Agadez cross (tenaghalt), one of a family of regional cross pendants named for towns and oases. These pendants have become a symbol of Tuareg identity, and some fathers traditionally give them to sons. The "cross" shape predates Christianity in the region and is not a Christian symbol.
Berber jewelry of North Africa
Amazigh (Berber) peoples live across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Amazigh women's jewelry is often large and made of silver, with enamel, coral, amber and coins. Common forms include:
- Fibulae (tizerzai), large triangular brooches worn in pairs at the shoulders, linked by chains to hold a draped garment
- Heavy bracelets and anklets
- Headdresses and temple pendants hung with coins
- Necklaces of red coral, amber, copal and silver beads
Jewelry has often been part of a woman's dowry and her personal wealth. The hand of Fatima (khamsa) appears widely as a protective symbol. Southern Moroccan towns such as Tiznit became known for silverwork, and Jewish silversmiths played a large part in Moroccan jewelry making until the mid-20th century, when most emigrated.
Navajo silver and turquoise
The Navajo (Dine) of the American Southwest learned silversmithing in the mid-19th century, probably from Mexican smiths. Atsidi Sani is often named as the first Navajo silversmith. Early pieces were made from melted silver coins, first American and then Mexican pesos, which had higher silver content.
Turquoise appeared in Navajo silver from around the 1880s. Navajo work is known for:
- The squash blossom necklace, with a crescent pendant called a naja and beads shaped like flowers
- Concho belts of large stamped silver disks
- Heavy cuffs and rings with large cabochons of turquoise
- Stamped and repousse silver using tools adapted from leatherworking
Southwestern turquoise from mines such as Kingman, Sleeping Beauty, Bisbee and Lone Mountain became closely linked with these designs. The tourist trade that grew with the railroads in the late 19th and early 20th centuries pushed styles toward heavier, more decorative pieces.
Zuni lapidary work
The Zuni people of New Mexico are known for fine lapidary work set in silver. Zuni styles include:
- Needlepoint and petit point, rows of tiny, narrow turquoise stones each set in its own silver bezel
- Inlay and channel inlay, with turquoise, jet, coral and shell cut to fit tightly together in pictures such as birds and dancers
- Carved fetishes, small animal figures in stone and shell
Hopi silversmiths developed overlay, in which a design is cut from one silver sheet and soldered onto another, with the lower layer oxidized black. In the United States, a federal law passed in 1990 makes it illegal to sell work as Native American made when it is not. The stone setting page explains bezel and channel settings used in this work.
Pacific shell valuables
Across the Pacific, shell was the material of wealth. Some examples:
- In the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea, the kula exchange circulated red shell necklaces (soulava) in one direction around a ring of islands and white shell armbands (mwali) in the other. The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski described this system in the early 20th century. Holding a famous piece brought prestige, and keeping it too long did not.
- On Yap in Micronesia, people used large stone disks (rai), quarried in Palau, as a form of value, alongside shell money.
- Pearl shell crescents (kina) were worn and exchanged in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
- Maori carvers in New Zealand made pendants of pounamu (nephrite) such as the hei-tiki, passed down through families as treasured heirlooms. The jade profile covers New Zealand nephrite.
Mother-of-pearl from pearl oysters and other shells was widely traded. Shell money also existed in Africa, where cowrie shells from the Indian Ocean served as currency over large areas.
Collecting and respect
Many traditional pieces carry ceremonial or family meaning, and some communities ask that certain objects not be sold or displayed. Buyers can ask who made a piece, where and when, and buy from makers or community-run outlets where possible. Older pieces may fall under export and cultural heritage laws. Pieces made from ivory, coral, tortoiseshell or feathers can also fall under wildlife trade rules.
Frequently asked questions
What do the colors in Maasai beadwork mean?
Common accounts link red with bravery and unity, blue with the sky and water, green with land and growth, and white with purity. Meanings vary by community and context, and the style of a piece can also show age and marital status.
What is the Agadez cross?
It is a cast silver pendant made by Tuareg smiths and named for the town of Agadez in Niger. It is one of many regional cross pendants and a symbol of Tuareg identity, not a Christian cross.
When did Navajo silversmithing begin?
Navajo smiths learned silverwork in the mid-19th century, likely from Mexican silversmiths. Turquoise began appearing in Navajo silver jewelry around the 1880s.
What is Zuni needlepoint jewelry?
Needlepoint is a Zuni style in which many tiny, narrow turquoise stones, each in its own silver bezel, are arranged in rows or clusters. It requires very precise stone cutting.