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This information was automatically generated from data provided by MOA: University of British Columbia. It has been standardized to aid in finding and grouping information within the RRN. Accuracy and meaning should be verified from the Data Source tab.

Description

Pair of brass earrings, each made of a single cylindrical length of metal, bent into an elliptical-shaped hook at the top end. A metal wire is wrapped closely around the length of each earring, and there is a brass ball at the base of the length.

History Of Use

In the past these earrings were worn only by individuals whose families had high standing ("atrozan") as a result of their own or their relatives' feast giving or generosity. A Kafir woman takes her social rank from her father. If they were feast-givers, she was permitted to wear the earrings.

Narrative

One of these earrings was collected from a Kam Kati woman in Kamdesh Village in the Bashgal River Valley, Nuristan, Afghanistan. The other was purchased from a shopkeeper on the Kabul River in Old Kabul. The Kalash'a also wear this type of earring if available, however it was mainly associated with the heartland of Nuristan, in the valleys of the western watershed of the Hindu Kush Mountains, before conversion to Islam in the 1890s. They are appropriate accessories to both the Kalash'a women's costume as well as the Nuristani women's costume. This earring style appears to have been most popular in the Waigal Valley in Nuristan. Some of the Kalash'a clans in Rumbur Valley, Pakistan, say their ancestors come from the Waigal Valley across the mountains.

Item History

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