Naga Double Brass Necklace with Faces

This highly decorative, cast brass chest ornament is from the Konyak Naga people. Unusually, it comprises two co-joined elements. These are unusual in themselves for having been cast with faces.

Each element is in the form of a segment of conch or chank shell. (Conch or chank shell segments are important components of Naga jewellery.) Each has a recognisable human face.

The top of each element has been cast with a ridge or upper border, as well as an elongated loop for suspension.

The ornament is suspended from a necklace of red-orange barrel-shaped glass trade beads of irregular size. Included is a single, large, clear glass bead (this has some age and wear-related losses.)

Such items were male prestige ornaments and might have been worn by warriors who had successfully taken heads.

See related examples (but without faces) in Jacobs (1990, p. 257).

The example here has an excellent patina and obvious age. The wear and smoothness of the contours of the pendant demonstrate its considerable age.