Enquiry about object: 10261
Unusually Large Naga Fish-Tail Brass Pendant Necklace
Konyak Naga People, Burma/India 19th century
length of brass pendant: 27.3cm, width of brass pendant: 9.4cm, length of beaded chain: approximately 24cm, weight: 328g
Provenance
UK art market
This unusually large chest ornament is of cast brass and is from the Konyak Naga people. Not only is it unusually long, it is also unusual for being cast with a face.
It is in the form of a segment of conch or chank shell with a fish-tail terminal and has been cast with a humanoid face – a nose and mouth and two spiral eyes. There is engraving on the face but much of it has worn with years of use and handling.
The top has been decorated with a zig-zag border and two loops to allow suspension.
It is suspended from a necklace of red and black-and-white polka-dot glass trade beads, most probably of Venetian origin.
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. It is one of the best examples we have seen.
References
Barbier, J.P., Art of Nagaland: The Barbier-Muller Collection Geneva, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984.
Borel, F., The Splendour of Ethnic Jewelry: From the Colette and Jean-Pierre Ghysels Collection, Thames & Hudson, 1994.
Giehmann, M., Naga Treasures: Tribal Adornment from the Nagas – India and Myanmar, 2021.
Daalder, T., Ethnic Jewellery and Adornment: Australia, Oceania, Asia, Africa, Ethnic Art Press/Macmillan, 2009.
Jacobs, J., The Nagas: Hill Peoples of Northeast India, Thames & Hudson, 1990.
Schmitt, K., ‘The language of Naga ornament: Beads, Bones and Hornbill feathers’, Arts of Asia, July-August 2004.
