For our peoples, adornment (like much else) is not merely for the adults. To this day, traditionals raise their children immersed in the culture, the language, the songs and dances and styles of dress. Children are given responsibilities appropriate to their ages and abilities, and are likewise given the opportunity to participate in lifeways that are denied their counterparts in many modern cultures.
If you’ve ever been to a powwow or other gathering, you’ll have seen the children dancing. There’s even a “Tiny Tots” category for toddlers, and little individuals barely more than two feet high step out into the circle in full regalia, from eagle feathers to moccasins, from headbands and jingles to earrings and bracelets made in their people’s traditional styles. Some are show-offs and some are shy, some skilled and others shuffling. It’s a beautiful sight, and it’s one that invariably moves me to tears every time I see it.
Every now and then, Wings will make an item of jewelry for a young family member as a gift, whether for ceremonial purposes or simply to have as something beautiful all his or her own. Sometimes, he makes a few such pieces for sale, as well. Some time ago, he used a little leftover wire from adult-sized projects to make a pair of children’s cuff bracelets. One, made with a tiny amethyst and silver beads, is long gone now; the other is the one you see pictured above.
I came across it a few days ago; it had been taken out of the case, probably to show it to someone, and gotten set aside in a box. When I found it, i just held it for a moment: a simple little band set with three stones, very little decoration, but still a fully traditional style simply scaled down to a small person’s size.
Just like the role children assume in our lifeways: fully-realized humans in their own right. Of course, they are small; of course, they are not yet grown in other ways. They need guidance and protection, nurturing to help them mature. But they are full-fledged community members, neither sidelined not hidden away. They are not so much permitted as expected to participate in community life.
How only appropriate, then, that they should have their own traditional accents and adornments.
From its description in the Bracelets Gallery here on the site:
In traditional cultures, the children wear traditional dress, right down to the jewelry, designed and sized just for them, but made in the styles their elders wear. This little cuff is a perfect example, one that embodies the energy and spontaneity and excitement of childhood balanced and tempered by calming protective influences. Made of sterling silver half-round wire, the band neither given neither an aged patina nor a mirror finish, buffed just enough to make it smooth against the skin. At its center rest three small bezel-set stones: an oval cabochon of snowflake obsidian, where the extremes of hot and cold meet and meld, flanked on either side by tiny round stones of soothing lapis lazuli.
Sterling silver, snowflake obsidian, lapis lazuli
$135 + shipping, handling, and insurance.
Among tourists, we tend to see requests for children’s jewelry only at certain times of year: occasionally at the winter holidays, for gifts; more often for shower and baby gifts, baptisms, christenings, events that seem to be clustered more generally in late spring and early summer. Once in a while, we’ll get a special request at other times of the year, for birthdays or other occasions, but it’s rare.
It’s natural, I suppose, from a cultural standpoint: Such pieces are not an inherent part of the activities of the dominant culture’s existence, and so it no doubt seems odd to spend money on an item of jewelry made of precious metals and gemstones for a child — children are, after all, assumed to be careless, to lose things or break them.
But for indigenous children, that’s not what it’s about. Oh, of course, there will be occasions when a piece gets lost or damaged; that’s unavoidable. But these are cultural items as much as simple jewelry, and they are treated as such. It’s a way of bringing a child into full participation in the community’s lifeways, while simultaneously instilling a respect for those ways and a sense of personal responsibility. It’s a collection of little jewels, real and metaphorical.
And like watching the children dance, it’s a beautiful thing.
~ Aji
