The East India Vade-Mecum, Volume 1 (of 2): or, complete guide to gentlemen intended for the civil, military, or naval service of the East India Company.Williamson, Thomas
History
The East India Vade-Mecum, Volume 1 (of 2): or, complete guide to gentlemen intended for the civil, military, or naval service of the East India Company.
Williamson, Thomas
India -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
The _joomkah_ is ever of solid gold, silver being in this absolutely
interdicted by the laws of taste; in framing which, pride seems to have
had no very small share. This ornament consists of a hollow hemisphere,
or bell, curiously fillagreed, and about three fourths of an inch in
diameter; the edges suspend small rods, or pendants of gold, each
furnished with one or more small pearls, garnets, &c.; perhaps to the
number of a dozen pendants being attached to the circumference of each
_joomkah_. The upper part is furnished with a small perforated stud,
sometimes ornamented, through which a ring, about the thickness of a
fine knitting-needle, and not less than half an inch in diameter, is
inserted; it previously passing through the ear in the part usually
pierced. This ring, as well as every other kind of fastening made to
pass through the ears, or nose, is made of the purest gold, and so
pliant as to allow the little hook made at one end, by bending the wire,
for the purpose of fixing into a minute loop, or eye, formed, at the
other end, by twisting it, to be straightened, at pleasure, by means of
the nail only.
European ladies content themselves with one appendage at each ear; while
the females of Hindostan think it impossible to have too many: thus,
they affix a number of small rings, of pure gold, or, in case of
poverty, of silver, or even of tin, all along the border of the ear;
which is pierced for that purpose in at least a dozen places, to receive
these ornaments, from which much distress often arises, owing to the
veil (already described) frequently hitching upon the small hooked ends
of the wire.
The nose has its share in the decorations of the Hindostanee fair, it
usually bearing two ornaments; one, called a _n’hut_, commonly passed
through the left nostril, consists only of a piece of gold wire, as
thick as a small knitting-needle, with the usual hook and eye, and
having the centre, or nearly so, furnished with several garnets, pearls,
&c. perhaps to the number of five or six, each parted from its neighbour
by a thin plate of gold, usually having serrated, or escaloped edges,
and being fixed transversely upon the wire, which passes through their
centres, as well as through the garnets, pearls, &c. The diameter of the
circle of a _n’hut_ may be, ordinarily, about two inches and a half. On
the coast of Coromandel, a similar ornament is worn by men of
respectability, in each ear.
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