Jewelry Of Nepal

FROM THE PUBLISHER

My book, The Jewelry of Nepal: Splendor in Symbols is the most exhaustive treatment of this subject. During 20 years of annual trips to Nepal, I have documented the ceremonial and everyday jewelry in 320 color photographs and 40 black and white pictures as well as line drawings in this 224 page book. I hope that Barnes and Noble readers will enjoy my book as much as I did my research in Nepal and the production of this book.

I have divided the close to 50 ethnic and caste groups in Nepal into five jewelry categories: Newar, Middle hills groups, Tibeto-Nepalese, Indo-Nepalese and Tharu. The jewelry styles of these distinct groups can be distinguished at a glance. Tibetans favor turquoise and coral; The Tharu wear masses of silver and white metal jewelry. Other groups show off large gold headpieces or big necklaces of red beads.

In Nepal, jewelry is not just adornment. Each jewelry piece is imbued with ancient symbolism, which I analyze in a special chapter. My approach to the subject was to present the jewelry in the context of its cultural setting. Therefore I wrote brief introductions to the groups, and I show the land and the people as I saw them. Most photos show the women who wear the jewelry during everyday activities as well as for religious festivals and life-cycle ceremonies. I felt very privileged to record a jewelry tradition that is rapidly changing and in many cases vanishing.

And I am grateful to the people who allowed me to participate in their festivals or dressed up for me for photography. I dedicated my book to the women of Nepal. Because of the great geographical and ethnic diversity in the mountainous environment of Nepal, I had to go to some very remote areas. In many cases this meant walking for weeks from the closest road to reach remote villages.

Thanks to my research assistant, Jeevan, I am able to write this introduction now. We were walking towards the Tibetan border in eastern Nepal for me to photograph a Tibeto-Nepalese group there, the Lhomi. The path lead at a disturbing angle over a vast expanse of bald rock. Jeevan instructed me to mind the incline and not to step on dry grass. I retorted that I was very well acquainted with this angle; the roof of my house was like that. We walked in single file but not very close. I stepped on a patch of dry grass with half my mind acknowledging the stupidity and the other half denying it. I slipped. Three hundred feet below me more big rocks lined a ravine. My foot caught on something. It broke. At that moment, Jeevan, lunging towards me, clutched my shirt at the shoulder, which gave me enough balance to scramble up.

During the intervals at home when not in Nepal, I prepared for my next trips, keeping the lunar calendar in mind, which sets the dates for festivals. Often these carefully planned schedules did not work out, or an event was just not what I had anticipated, or I needed to be at several places at the same time. For every misplanned event, some other occasion presented itself. For example, for years, I had wanted to photograph ihi , a girls' ceremony of the Newar. Schedules did not work out, and I gave up on the project. Then, I had prepared to take a weekly flight to Western Nepal from Kathmandu and had two days to spare. Eager to leave the polluted city, Jeevan and I took a bus to Panauti, a rural community at the edge of the Kathmandu Valley. We walked to the temple square , where the ihi ceremony was held for 200 girls, many dressed in ceremonial reds and brocades and covered in gold jewelry.

For the reader who looks at my photographs of women with lavish jewelry, seemingly lined up to have their photographs taken, it is not evident how much the jewelry tradition in Nepal is endangered. I feel privileged that I could do my work just in time.

Hannelore Gabriel (author) (Hannelore-Gabriel@OurGallery.com), the author of theJewelry of Nepal, April 7, 1999.

FROM THE CRITICS

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