Hair Ornaments Research Articles

National values in the translation of Kazakh literary works

This article examines the translation of Kazakh cultural objects in literary works, which holds significant importance for Kazakh language and culture. The article analyzes the significance of national hair ornaments and belts in the works of Kazakh writers and their translation into Russian and English. Kazakh people believe that the hair ornament sholpy protects a girl or a young woman from evil forces. This type of hair ornament has both material and spiritual significance in Kazakh culture. In Kazakh literary works, the value of the analyzed jewelry is connected with its affiliation to a person and social status. It is presented as a symbol of female beauty. The belt is a valuable piece of nomadic clothing and a highly valued sacred object in Kazakh culture. Specific functional and semantic meanings as well as translation in literary works have been considered. The importance of translation as a “golden bridge” between different cultures is on the rise. As in other spheres, the requirements for translation are updated depending on the purpose and stage. The anthropocentric trend in modern linguistics raises the question of the relationship between language, man and culture, and poses the task of being able to convey the world view of one nation in the language of another, preserving all cultural and spiritual characteristics, taking into account deep information about people’s background knowledge. The article also analyzes the problem of background knowledge and the peculiarities of translating Kazakh culture-specific elements with spiritual significance for the people. These elements should be taken into account when translating literary works.

원삼의 근대적 절충양상과 의미

This study investigates the modern eclectic aspect and meaning of Wonsam(圓衫), a woman"s formal dress, in the early modern period. Visual data containing relics and wearing techniques of Wonsam before and after the Korean Empire were analyzed, and the results are presented as follows. First, the cause of Wonsam as the Korean Empire"s court dress and the formal dress was the nationalization of women"s ceremonial dress after the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592, the similar shape of Noui(露衣), Jangsam(長衫), and Wonsam was used of the four ceremonial occasions. Thus, it was analyzed in terms of the universalization of Wonsam. Second, the wearing techniques and characteristics of the modern Wonsam were divided into hairstyles, colors, the order, the rank badge, and gold ornaments. The hairstyle was gradually simplified from the Geodumi(巨頭味) to the eoyeomeoli and the flower crown. The color of Wonsam was distinguished by yellow, red, green, burgundy, and black, depending on the status of the empress. The orders of Seobongdaesu(瑞鳳大綬勳章), which was worn along with Wonsam, played a symbolic role in revealing the highest authority and was worn only at ceremonies supervised by the empress. Among the rank badge attached to Wonsam, the dragon pattern was allowed to be extended to women in the imperial family by the status of the Korean Empire. As for the gold ornament, the dragon pattern was embellished on Wonsam for the empress, and even Saekdong and Hansam were decorated with gold and became splendid. Third, the modern eclectic aspects and meanings of Wonsam in formal attires were analyzed to expand and simplify the usage of Wonsam, reinforce class distinction, and maintain uniqueness. In the period of the Korean Empire, Wonsam became a representative formal ceremonial dress, and the hairstyle also became simple. The hair ornaments, the color of Wonsam, the order, the rank badge, and the gold ornaments were distinctive to express the class. In addition, while maintaining the uniqueness of Wonsam, it revealed pride and identity for national culture.

Art by Jazz Bell

Art by Jazz Bell

Research on the Production of Rococo Hair Ornaments using Pearls

Music, art, clothing, architecture, and beauty during the period when luxury and sensual pleasure were concentrated, and now it refers to European culture in the 18th century before the French Revolution, and an art field called Rococo format has been created in various fields. In this Rococo era, lovely curves and pastel shades were mainly used to create colorful visual effects on feminine designs, but these features still provide ideas in various areas. This study attempted to analyze and study the works of art from the Rococo era to shape the hair ornaments in the works of art, and mainly used pearls to preserve the elegant and soft curves of the Rococo era. Works that show the characteristics of hair accessories were selected first and selected as works that could reflect reality. Based on that, four works were selected based on the design: Portrait of Marquis Pompadour (Purangsua Busse), Women Playing Music on the Terrace of the Park (Francea Claudius Cont Gallix), Portrait of Queen Robisa Ulica (Lorence Pasden Inger) and Portrait of Marriant and Nette (Joseph Hichelle).

Flaunting and Consumption: Women’s Headdress in the Ming Dynasty of China

The Ming Dynasty of China was the ruling dynasty from 1368 to 1644. Wearing hair ornaments as a fashion statement has been an important lasting tradition in Chinese costume history. This article analyzes the political and cultural connotations of women’s headdress throughout the social hierarchy of the Ming Dynasty. During those flourishing cultural and economic times, both the aristocracy and commoners used headdresses to pursue custom trends and to display their ability to consume material wealth. Fashion was a means of distinguishing social classes from one another–the aristocracy could flaunt their prestige by acquiring elaborate and costly hair ornaments, while the commoners intended to break class barriers by emulating the elite styles. The evolution of fashion throughout history reflects the social and esthetic rules of the time. The unique silhouettes, choices of materials, and design features of these headdresses took on different forms as social and cultural norms shifted. Women’s headdress from the Ming Dynasty were metaphors that signified impactful expressions of fashion and consumption throughout social ladders, which is still an influential cultural phenomenon that persists in today’s society.

‘Dragging Seventy Little Plaits of Her Across the Land of the Altai’: Haircare, Hairstyles, and Hair Ornaments of the Southern Altaians from Historical and Cultural Perspectives

This study deals with haircare, hair ornaments, hairstyles, and hairrelated rituals of the Southern Altaians (Altai Kizhi, Telengits) and their development over time. Haircare has played an important role in Altaian society for centuries. It has been a ritual symbol, an indicator of gender, age, marital or social status. In context, hair has played a significant cultural and social role across societies and historical periods around the world. For this reason, haircare has also been sometimes included among the so-called cultural or human universals, i.e. phenomena that are common to all known human cultures in time and space. The source of information for this study was the authors’ own field research, relevant literature and visual sources documenting the broader context of haircare. The issue is viewed from historical and cultural perspectives, with the main focus on the current haircare of the Altaian people in connection with changes compared to the past. The study focuses on selected phenomena that proved to be the most important in the field research in terms of their existence and the role they currently play in Altaian society. It does not therefore aim to cover the full breadth of the topic, but leaves room for further research on sub-topics.

Along a Continuum: Spirally-woven Beadwork of the Tlingit, Wasco, and Pit River Peoples

This presentation explores the impact of introducing glass beads on the weaving practices of three Pacific Northwest Indigenous groups. Although Native Americans made and used beads of bone, shell, seed, and stone prior to contact with Western European culture, the 18th-century introduction of glass beads brought new elements of sparkle, regularity, and color to native art and inspired creative expressions. Faced with the challenge of integrating these new materials, women turned to familiar basketry techniques for ideas, adapting traditional basket-making methods to weave beads and native-made fibers into bags, caps, straps, and hair ornaments. Visual evidence for this can be seen in the motifs found on 19th-century woven bead work from the Pacific Northwest, which correlate directly to those used by women on their baskets and flat bags. This presentation will provide examples of loose-warp woven beadwork from three Native American tribes in the greater Pacific Northwest: the Tlingit of Southeastern Alaska, who focused more on embroidered beadwork than loose warp weaving; the Wasco of the Columbia River Valley, who wove beads until about 1915 at which point loose warp weaving techniques were gradually replaced by beading “on a frame;” and the Pit River Indians of Northern California, who created some of the most idiosyncratic objects, shaping their tubular bags in unusual ways. Over time, native-made fibers of sinew, Indian hemp, and nettle were replaced by commercially available cotton and linen thread. In addition, standards were influenced by needlework instructors at Indian boarding schools and Anglo imagery came to predominate over ancient basket motifs. Understanding the history of native woven beadwork and its techniques helps us understand the sweep of change in native societies and reveals the choices individual women made as they incorporated unusual materials into their visual lexicon and technical repertoire, creating colorful works to adorn their families and homes.

An Analysis on Formative Characteristics in the Hair style and Hair ornaments of Gisaeng in the Late Joseon Dynasty and Geisha in the Edo Period

This study comparatively analyzed the formality of hairstyles and hair accessories in the cosmetology culture of the Gisaeng (Korean equivalent of geisha) who led the cultural trends during the late Joseon and Edo periods. For this, it was assumed that the late Joseon and Edoperiods were the time when the grounds for the history of cosmetology culture were established. Specifically, the late Joseon era refers to the period from the reign of King Gwanghaegun (1608, 15th king of Joseon Dynasty) after the imjinwaeran (Japanese invasion of Korea in 1952) and byeongjahoran (Chinese invasion of Korea in 1636) to the reign of the 25th king Cheoljong (1863), while the Edo period was limited to the period from the reign of the 1st shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1600) to the 15th shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu. According to an analysis of hairstyles and hair accessories during the late Joseon and Edo periods based on formality theory, oval-vertical and symmetric-asymmetric styles were found during the late Joseon era while triangular, oval, round and symmetric styles were observed during the Tokugawa period. In terms of texture, both rough and smooth textures were adopted during the late Joseon period while smooth texture only was expressed during the Edo period. From a color perspective, ‘natural black’ was observed in both countries. In terms of hair accessories, symmetric items were found during both the late Joseon and Edo periods. In terms of texture, hair accessories from the two countries showed different texture depending on material type. However, they were mostly smooth in the body with diverse textures in the ornamented parts such as jewels, intaglio and silver workmanship. Regarding the color of hair accessories, gold and silver were common with elaborate color in the ornamented part during the late Joseon period. During the Edo period, in contrast, a wide variety of colors including black, red, dark colors, metal and jewels were observed.

조선시대 남성 머리 장신구를 모티브로 활용한 패턴디자인 개발

전통 문화의 지속적인 계승과 발전은 한 민족의 정체성과 자긍심을 일깨우는데 중요한 역할을 수행한다. 본 연구는 조선시대 남성 수식을 모티브로 활용하여 패턴디자인을 개발하는데 목적을 두었다. 이는 앞으로 전통 문화와 패션의 융합을 기반으로 한 패션문화상품을 비롯한 다양한 문화상품 개발을 위한 기초자료로 활용될 수 있고, 더 나아가 전통 문화의 활성화에 기여할 수 있을 것이다.BR 연구 내용과 방법은 남성 머리 장신구에 대한 문헌고찰과 패턴디자인 개발의 실증적 연구로 진행하였다. 또한 남성 머리 장신구에 대한 인식 정도와 디자인 선호도 및 기본 모티브 디자인에 대한 선호도 조사를 실시하여 패턴디자인 개발에 참고하였다. 기본 모티브 디자인과 패턴디자인 등 전반적인 디자인 전개를 위해서는 그래픽 프로그램인 어도비 일러스트레이터를 이용하였다.BR 연구결과 남성 머리 장신구는 각 아이템에 따른 독특한 형상, 소재, 문양의 조형적 가치는 물론 기능적 실용성과 신분이나 품계를 나타내는 상징적 기능을 반영하고 있음을 알 수 있었다. 본 연구에서는 동곳, 풍잠, 관자, 상투관, 정자, 입식, 구영자의 형태를 이용하여 기본 모티브를 디자인하였고, 다양한 패턴디자인 구성방법을 적용하여 총 56종의 패턴디자인을 개발하였다. 그리고 개발된 패턴디자인을 적용하여 패션문화 상품으로 활용가능성을 모색하였다.BR 이상의 연구를 통해 남성 머리 장신구가 지닌 조형적 아름다움을 재인식할 수 있는 계기가 되었고, 전통 문화와 패션의 융합을 통한 디자인 개발의 무한한 가능성을 예측할 수 있었다.

Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths

Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths

Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GRP) and Medical Application

Numerous common classes of polymers are composed of hydrocarbons. The polymers are especially constructed of tiny units bonded onto elongated chains. Carbon makes up the mainstay/backbone of the hydrogen atoms and the molecules. one of the most popular environmental issues linked with synthetic polymers pollution is 45% of seabird types are believed to have swallowed polymers that have been confused for food, consistent with the United States Institute of Health. Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GRP), similarly called Fiber Reinforced Plastic, is type of polymer matrix composites made of thermosetting resins. GRP is utilized due to its high light weight, mechanical strength, temperature and corrosion resistant properties, smooth internal surface, thermal insulation, ease of repair, flexible shapes, and its affordability. It comprises glass fiber and thermosetting resin. Its best glass fiber component and winding techniques ensure the quality and usefulness of the material (Collyer, 2014). Polymerization may be illustrated by joining strips of construction paper conjointly to build garlands or hooking together many paper clips to create chains. Polymers have remained the phenomenon material of the past century and represent the prevalent class of biomaterials. In general, polymers are substances consist of macromolecules. Macromolecule may be further defined as molecules of high comparative molecular mass, the structure that significantly composes the numerous repetitions of units derived, conceptually or actually from molecule of low relative mass. According to Holm (2012) studies, natural polymers comprise things like tortoise shell and horns, shellac and a star, in addition tree saps that generate latex and amber. These polymers were process by applying pressure and heat into valuable articles such as jewelry and hair ornaments. Natural polymers started to be chemically altered during the 1800s to make several materials. The most popular of these included celluloid, rubber, and gun cotton. The initial synthetic polymer developed was Bakelite during 1909, and was later succeeded by the first rayon, semi-synthetic fiber, which was produced during 1911(Williams, 2013).

현대 머리장식에 표현된 맥시멀리즘의 표현기법과 미적 의미에 관한 연구

This study analyzes expression methodology and aesthetic meanings in modern hair ornaments that adopt maximalism. Maximalism has appeared in various hair ornaments throughout history. Hair dresses are used for many reasons related to class, social position, religious beliefs, and occupation throughout the Eastern and Western hemispheres. A higher class and social position was often denoted by a fancier and bigger hairdress. In modern society maximalism is expressed in literature, expressionism, maxi-marketing, exaggerative advertisements, and symbolic architecture. Formative expression methodologies in modern hair ornaments that adopt maximalism are transform, overlapping & exaggeration, and mixing & edition. The aesthetic meanings of maximalism in hair ornaments are the reinterpretation of retro ornaments, the exaggeration of internal self-expression, humorous symbolic objects, and the conveyance of a social critical message. The advantages of maximalism help people communicate and co-provide an abundant life. These are expected to create significant and numerous positive impacts in society. In addition, the continued efforts on the investment in hair ornaments that express Maximalism well as a fashion trend shows that further study on the persistence, practicality and recognized design inconvenience in the aesthetic value are needed.

흉노(匈奴)의 복식문화에 관한 연구

Xiognu people were the first of the Central-Asian nomads to establish a nation in 209 B.C. They always moved around looking for places to breed their animals and fertile grounds, so they wore clothes made of fur and leather and covered their tents with felt from the livestock. This research studies on the literatures, costumes and the achievement of archaeological excavation. Furthermore, to investigate on costumes excavated of Xiongnu, we visited the Mongolian National Museum and the Hermitage Museum. A corn-hat made of felt, a felt hat with ear flaps and a golden crown with a bird on the top were unearthed from a tomb of Xiongnu in Inner mongolia. Women usually wore pigtails, and men wore pigtails or ponytails but they cut their hair short when holding a funeral. Many pigtails discovered in Noyon uul tombs can be considered as their funeral customs. The Xiongnu wore a round or v-neck caftan attached straight sleeves reaching knees in the left folded style, and because they always rode horses, having the length of the caftan not go past their buttocks would have made it more convenient for them. During the period of Western Han, Ho refered to Xiongnu and it became a common name for northern races. They used leather belts and an animal-designed buckle was found. Women commonly rouged their cheeks for a vivid and cute look, and many ornaments were excavated including bracelets, rings and decorations made of gold, silver, copper and jade, among which there were hair ornaments used to identify one`s class. A horse pattern with wings and a horn of Golmod T20 was substitution for the Schythian use of deer. Patterns or shape of unearthed articles present in the Xiongnu culture in Noyon uul had a close relationship with Altaic, Greek and Persian cultures. The Xiongnu clothing was made of animals` skin and fur, woolen textiles and felt. It was folded to the left for upper garments, and the pants were adjusted using a belt and shoes were made of leather, which was very suitable for protection against the cold and horse riding. Mobility played a significant role in their clothing.

Selling women: prostitution, markets, and the household in early modern Japan

List of Illustrations Foreword, Matthew H. Sommer Acknowledgments A Note on Currency and Prices Introduction Part One: Regulation and the Logic of the Household 1. Adulterous Prostitutes, Pawned Wives, and Purchased Women: Female Bodies as Currency 2. Creating Prostitutes: Benevolence, Profit, and the Construction of a Gendered Order 3. Negotiating the Gendered Order: Prostitutes as Daughters, Wives, and Mothers Part Two: Expansion and the Logic of the Market 4. From Household to Market: Child Sellers, Widows, and Other Shameless People 5. Glittering Hair Ornaments and Barren Fields: Prostitution and the Crisis of the Countryside 6. Tora and the Rules of the Pleasure Quarter Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Did Trichromatic Color Vision and Red Hair Color Coevolve in Primates?

Reddish pelage and red hair ornaments have evolved many times, independently, during primate evolution. It is generally assumed that these red-coat phenotypes, like red skin phenotypes, play a role in sociosexual signaling and, thus evolved in tandem with conspecific color vision. This study examines the phylogenetic distribution of color vision and pelage coloration across the primate order to ask: (1) did red pelage and trichromacy coevolve; or (2) did trichromacy evolve first, and then subsequently red pelage evolved as an exaptation? We collected quantitative, color-corrected photographic color data for 142 museum research skins from 92 species representing 41 genera spanning all major primate lineages. For each species, we quantified the ratio of Red/Green values (from a RGB color model) at 20 anatomical landmarks. For these same species, we compiled data on color vision type (routine trichromatic, polymorphic, routine dichromatic, monochromatic) and data on variables that potentially covary with visual system (VS) and coloration, including activity pattern and body mass dimorphism (proxy for sexual selection). We also considered whether the long-term storage of research skins might influence coloration. Therefore, we included the time since the specimen was collected as an additional predictor. Analyzing the data with phylogenetic generalized least squares models, we found that the amount of red hair present in primates is associated with differences in VSs, but not in the direction expected. Surprisingly, trichromatic primate species generally exhibited less red hair compared to red-green colorblind species. Thus, our results do not support the general assumption that color vision and red pelage coloration are a coevolutionary product of sociosexual signaling in primates. In addition, we did not find an effect of activity pattern, body mass dimorphism, or time since collection on the redness of primate hair. Our results have important implications for the evolution of primate coloration and visual systems.

Colluding with the Enemy?: Nationalism and Depictions of “Aboriginality” in Canadian Olympic Moments

Colluding with the Enemy? Nationalism and Depictions of “Aboriginality” in Canadian Olympic Moments Jennifer Adese (bio) After the Indians had their moment in the spotlight, they danced back into history, making way for miners, cowboys and settlers of all races to do-se-do together (as if that ever happened in that place and time). Only the Indians were missing from the hoedown in Salt Lake. But these are just symbols, you say? Well, yeah. Mega-bucks worth of symbols. Symbology that reaches millions of people around the world and leaves a lasting impression in the place of reality. Suzan Shown Harjo, “Indians in the Olympics Ceremony? Postcard from the Past” As a fair-skinned âpihtawikosis-âniskwéw (Cree-Métis woman), I am one of many Indigenous peoples who have been, as Emma Larocque writes, “hounded and haunted by White North America’s image machine.”1 I became interested in researching Indigenous involvement in the Olympics after one of my cousins forwarded to me in September 2009 the application to attend the Indigenous Youth Gathering (iyg) to be held from January 30 to February 14, 2010. The Vancouver 2010 Olympics were slated to start on February 12 and run until February 28; since the iyg was to end just a couple of days after the opening of the games, it was clear that applicants were being tapped to play some role in the opening of the games. Given the involvement of Indigenous peoples in previous Olympic opening and closing ceremonies (in 1976 and 1988), it was not a stretch to assume we would play a role in Vancouver’s opening ceremony. This was made clearer by the fact that the application form requests [End Page 479] that we include two full-length color photographs of ourselves wearing traditional clothing, clothing that we would be expected to bring with us to the gathering. The application encourages youth to, “where applicable,” incorporate accessories such as roaches/masks, hair ornaments, face or body paint, earrings/pendants, arm or leg bracelets or bands, skins/furs/bark, footwear, and instruments or drums and rattles. The application asks, however, that applicants “not wear non-traditional clothing” (a.k.a. “contemporary” clothing) in the photos.2 This was the first gathering application, out of the many that I’d seen, that required a picture to be included in the application. Having my moccasins, my Métis sash, and my dad’s moosehide jacket, I wasn’t sure that even with all this and my “Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism Since 1492” T-shirt I’d be “Aboriginal enough” to be selected, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to find out—or that I wanted anyone affiliated with the Olympic organizing committee to decide whether or not I was. This experience has inspired me to question more deeply the nature of Indigenous involvement in the 2010 Vancouver Olympic opening ceremony. Indigenous peoples have been involved in each of the Canadian-hosted Olympics (to varying degrees), and, given my encounter with the 2010 iyg application form, I came to question the nature of organizational committees’ motives with regard to Indigenous performance in ceremonies. Why are we so popular? The 1976 Montréal Summer Olympic closing ceremony, the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic opening ceremony, and the 2010 Winter Olympic opening ceremony in Vancouver each placed Indigenous peoples at the heart of its expressions of regional, provincial, and Canadian national identity in one form or another. Why is it that organizing committees view Indigenous peoples as central to Olympic ceremonies and as so seemingly central to the narratives of national identity produced during them? What is Canada trying to say about itself by insisting on Indigenous presence within the Olympic ceremonies when in so many other spaces in Canadian society we are purposefully invisibilized? I argue that while earlier national narratives alluded to the racial superiority of “white” Canadians and their hand in subjugating/civilizing Indigenous populations, in recent decades it has become far less fashionable to insinuate such things. Canada has thus consistently drawn on the multiculturalist rhetoric (of equality) as a framework for narrating Canadian-Indigenous relations. The amplified international attention brought by the Olympics has [End...

Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria: A Mirror to the World by Charlotte Gere and Judy Rudoe (review)

Reviewed by: Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria: A Mirror to the World by Charlotte Gere and Judy Rudoe Julie Codell (bio) Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria: A Mirror to the World by Charlotte Gere and Judy Rudoe; pp. 552. London: British Museum, 2010. $87.89 cloth. The Recent interest in Victorian material culture will be greatly enhanced by this huge, beautifully illustrated (with over five hundred illustrations, four hundred of which are in colour), and scrupulously documented study of Victorian jewellery that reflects new directions in museum and fashion studies. A mark of social status, taste, and economics, jewellery plays a complicated role in culture. Victorian protocol for wearing jewellery carried rich associations with love, mourning, and social hierarchies. Traditional studies of Victorian jewellery are rooted in archival histories of styles, revivals, and wealthy wearers. This book goes far beyond previous studies to examine the social life of jewellery and its symbolic and metaphoric meanings in social life, literature, and art. While filled with technical information, the book does not categorize jewellery by materials or techniques but by social functions and uses. It embraces all jewellery displayed at international exhibitions, museums, and shops from Europe, North America, and Asia, with a special focus on jewellery’s role in cultural exchanges between France and Britain. The book’s gorgeous reproductions and detailed commentary profoundly reflect the omnipresence of jewellery in portraiture and literary painting. The authors scoured letters, diaries, fiction, newspapers (the Times and New York Times online), as well as records of international exhibitions, global jewellery production and consumption, the domestication of exotica, and even cheap and seemingly ephemeral jewellery to reveal the fluidity of taste across social classes, from high-end wearers to those wearing imitation jewellery. All classes of jewellery were collected by the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria and Albert Museum), the Victorian measure of an object’s [End Page 218] cultural worth. The book’s themes include marketing (trade journals, distribution, new and secondhand markets); shopping, in a variety of shops; the globalization of jewellery production and consumption; and jewellery’s role in shaping national identity. The book contributes to the knowledge of jewellery in Victorian painting, a thread running throughout the volume, thus supplementing Marcia Pointon’s excellent Brilliant Effects (2010) in its detail about pre-Victorian jewellery and art. The first chapter focuses on Queen Victoria, whose love of jewellery embodies all the book’s themes. Her jewellery measured her life events, and she set the fashion through jewels worn on public occasions. She also affected fashion throughout Europe as her children married Continental monarchs and received her royal gifts of jewellery. The royal family permitted their jewels to be displayed in public. Royal ledgers listed every piece of jewellery, including those set with babies’ teeth as well as pebbles from near Balmoral. The Queen collected microphotographic miniaturized images set in jewellery, including enamelled miniatures. Purchases were meant to support native production and commerce, including Scottish, Irish, and colonial pieces—her Jenny Lind comb revived the dying tortoise-shell industry in Sheffield. Albert’s support of British design and manufacture similarly affected jewellery production. Chapter 2 focuses on the significance of jewellery as a sign of wealth and on rules for wearing jewellery, rules that cut across all social strata, a trickle-down effect thanks to the Victorian appearance of ready-made jewellery. In the 1850s, both Victoria and Empress Eugénie modernized state jewels, turning them into signs of power and nationhood. Gere and Rudoe inventory Eugenie’s private collection—objects she took with her when she fled France in 1870—as well as courtesans’ expensive jewels, which raised their social status in France and Britain. French crown jewels sold by Tiffany’s in Paris enriched the wives of American entrepreneurs. The authors describe revivals of eighteenth-century jewellery, the role of jewellery as an art form, and the level of ostentation in jewellery fashions: austere in the 1840s and ‘50s, then richly displayed later. Hair ornaments of the 1830s and ‘40s gave way to 1850s diadems and then to diamond pieces that could be dismantled and rearranged for different occasions. All these trends contributed to “a democratization...

Technological Tradition and Change in Tibetan Silversmithing Techniques in Songpan, Sichuan Province, China

ABSTRACTSilver jewelry and repoussé work have been a significant part of the material culture of Tibet for centuries. While objects such as offering bowls, skullcups, butter lamps, ewers, portable shrines and incense burners serve religious purposes, many other type of objects are important in the secular life of Tibetans. This secular silver material culture includes items such as necklaces, bracelets, rings, hair ornaments, amulet cases, vessels, belts or waistbands and hooks for milk pails or butter churners.The discussion presented here focuses on secular silver objects made in the workshop of a traditional Tibetan silversmith in the town of Songpan in northwestern Sichuan Province, China (traditionally comprising part of eastern Tibet). With interruptions in traditional practices during the Cultural Revolution, the question has been raised about whether or not such practices have continued [1]. This research is part of an effort to document traditional Tibetan craft practices and identify threats to their preservation. Workshop processes start with the craftsman acquiring the silver, making or buying tools, arranging the work area, and the customer commissioning a piece. Technical processes include working the silver ingot to form an object, annealing and quenching, making silver wire, filigree, granulation, soldering, inlay work, pickling and finishing.Some changes have been introduced in how the workshop operates during the lifetime of the current craftsman, leading to differences between his procedures and that of his father, under whom he apprenticed. Some of these changes are due to technological advances (new equipment becoming available) and some are due to larger societal changes (for example, new government regulations regarding purchasing of raw silver). These changes are often in technological style affecting the fabrication stages, but not necessarily visible in completed objects, which retain their traditional forms, visual style and functions.

Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance (review)

Reviewed by: Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance Wendy Hsu (bio) Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance. By Tomie Hahn. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2007. 224 pp. After the recent release of Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie Memoirs of a Geisha, Björk's CD Homogenic, and a series of music videos by Madonna, Missy Elliot, Ginuwine, and Christina Milian, the kimono-clad Asian woman has become one of the icons of Asian chic in pop America.1 With the nineteenth-century French fad of Japanese art and culture known as japonisme in our nearly remote hindsight, the exoticized and eroticized bodies of Japanese women are certainly not a new trope in Europe and North America. One wonders what cultural impact this Western fascination with the Asian/ Japanese female body has on women who practice traditional arts in Japan. Tomie Hahn's ethnography Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance provides a powerful dissonance to the widely circulated objectifying images of Japanese women. In the introduction Hahn invokes her subversive impulse to "reappropriate the exotic mystique of the 'fan dance' stereotype of the demure 'Oriental lady' who entices the onlookers' gaze by revealing and concealing her body . . . to reappropriate the fan, kimono, and hair ornaments to tell a very different story of Japanese performing women" (14–15). Hahn's monograph on the embodied transmission process of Japanese dance (nihon buyo)—narrating while analyzing the author's fieldwork and experiences of learning the dance for over thirty years—is rhetorically captivating and intellectually nuanced. Hahn draws methodological and theoretical ideas from a number of disciplines, including "ethnomusicology, dance studies, anthropology, performance studies, and Asian philosophies of the body" (2). As Hahn indicates, the book's organization poetically corresponds to the unfolding movement of a sensu, a paper fan supported by a bamboo backbone, often used in nihon buyo. The first chapter, "Introduction—Sensual Orientations," outlines reflexive ethnographic methods and the frame-work of cultural transmission with a focus on body knowledge and multisensory experience. The second chapter, "Moving Scenes," narrates the recent social history and structure of the practice of traditional Japanese dance. Chapter 3, "Unfolding Essence," elucidates the relevant concepts and aesthetic principles of Japanese arts. Chapter 4, "Revealing Lessons," details the transmission process, with a substantial section [End Page 110] devoted to discussing each of the senses involved. The last chapter, "Transforming Sensu," explores issues of codeswitching, identity formation and articulation, and cultural transformation involved in the embodiment practices of fieldwork and performances. Hahn locates her body as a deposit of her field experience. The field site is conceived as a broad landscape, at the center of which is her own body and from which extend other important social actors such as her teachers, colleagues, and the audience of her performance. This frame of knowledge appears and disappears, depending on how her body engages with the history of the dance and the memories of her dance teachers (xiv). Echoing recent feminist dance and performance scholarship, Sensational Knowledge's emphasis on the body as a key epistemological locus diffuses the historical mind-over-body baggage in Western scholarship.2 Hahn's adherence to the cultural specificity of the Japanese traditional practice and principles—the interdependence of mind and body, theory and practice—illuminates her implicit critique of the masculinist Western Cartesian split. Sensational Knowledge confronts the challenging task of translating movement into text head-on with keen descriptive details written in elegant prose. "I crave specificity and a semblance of physical presence in dance scholarship. Limbs. Breath. Shoulders. Muscles. Gaze" (6). Inspired by the dance writing of Barbara Browning and other dance ethnologists since the mid-1980s, the moving quality (physically and affectively) of Hahn's prose achieves kinesthetic sensation and evokes the reader's empathy.3 In Hahn's writing dance is not just composed of movements and techniques but is a stream of sensations, experiences, meanings, and emotions. Hahn follows feminist ethnographers Lila Abu-Lughod, Ruth Behar, and Michelle Kisliuk to write with vulnerability and reflexivity.4 Rather than making passive, nonparticipatory, quantifiable, and objectifying observations, Hahn foregrounds social relationships, revolving around those with her teachers. Her framework and analysis are informed by the poststructuralist...

The Characterization of Tortoise Shell and its Imitations

TORTOISE SHELL AND ITS IMITATIONS GEMS & GEMOLOGY SPRING 2006 he term “tortoise shell” generally refers to the carapacial (dorsal shell) and plastron (belly) plates of the hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata). The use of tortoise shell dates at least to pre-dynastic Egypt (3500–3100 BC), from which period dishes, combs, bracelets, and the like are known (“Animal products...,” 2005). Tortoise shell objects were popular with both the ancient Greeks and wealthy citizens of ancient Rome (Bariand and Poirot, 1998). The commercial exploitation of this material in Europe began as early as the 15th century in Spain (“Natural plastics,” 2005), and many types of tortoise shell objects have been produced since then. These include furniture inlays, eyeglass frames, decorative boxes, rings, bracelets, and earrings (see, e.g., figure 1). In Japan, tortoise shell crafting, or bekko, has been an important industry since at least the 17th century, most of it centered in Nagasaki (Pedersen, 2004). Bekko objects such as hair ornaments are still being created today from stockpiled material. The vast majority of worked tortoise shell material comes from the shells of two species of sea turtles: the hawksbill and, more rarely, the green turtle (see box A). The shells of these turtles exhibit attractive patterns that normally consist of light to dark brown patches, though a homogeneous “cream”-colored variety called blond tortoise shell also exists. The popularity of tortoise shell during the 18th through early 20th centuries caused these animals to be hunted almost to extinction, leading to a near-worldwide ban on collection in the 1970s, as well as a ban on international trade in tortoise shell products (Spotila, 2004; box B). For the modern gemologist, tortoise shell has become a rather exotic material, for which a thorough gemological study is lacking.