The Handmade Bracelets of the Bedouin

For at least as long as humans have been able to represent themselves and their activities, jewellery has been a part of human life. Jewellery has been used to represent status, trumpet wealth, cement position, and simply for adornment. Among the most timeless peoples to wear and barter in jewellery, especially handmade bracelets, are the nomadic tribes of the Middle East, known as the Bedouin.

The Bedouin roam the deserts and plains that stretch from the shores of Morocco, past the sands of Arabia, to the civilizations of the Levant and beyond. Throughout the centuries, their nomadic lifestyle has dictated that they bear their riches on their bodies or their camels’ backs. More often than not, these riches have amounted to intricate, stunning and heavy handmade bracelets of silver. For the Bedouin, handmade bracelets – sometimes bearing silver coin “charms” - were also legal tender, which could be exchanged for goods and services anywhere they roamed.

Why silver, you may ask? Although gold is today thought to be more precious than silver, silver was abundant in the deserts, and was first mined, by King Solomon, in what is now Saudi Arabia. In fact gold and silver handmade bracelets are mentioned in the Old Testament; and Muslim tradition holds that the Prophet Muhammad, a modest man, favoured silver over the more ostentatious gold, and was even said to wear a silver signet ring himself.

These are among the reasons that handmade bracelets came to be part of the dowry of a Bedouin woman. If she were marrying into a prosperous clan, she might also receive handmade bracelets as a wedding gift from her husband and his family. Most certainly, she would receive handmade bracelets on the birth of a son. At any stage of her life, the Bedouin woman’s status – as single or married, childless or a mother - would be apparent in the handmade bracelets that adorned her, symbol of her stage of life and social standing.  

Thus, the Bedouin woman wore her personal wealth; her handmade bracelets were her guarantors, and she could do with them as she pleased. Contrary to the western tradition of handing jewellery down from one generation to the next, it is the Bedouin tradition to melt down a woman’s handmade bracelets and other jewellery after her death, refashioning it into new pieces for the next generation of Bedouin daughters.

In addition to being her own private “cache”, the handmade bracelets of the Bedouin woman lent her “cachet”. Handmade bracelets highlighted her status and beauty, and also protected the Bedouin woman against the “evil eye” and bad luck. Though amulets pre-date religion, many faiths have adopted and incorporated the use of handmade bracelets for divine protection. Followers of Islam wear handmade bracelets bearing Qur’anic verses or the name of Allah; Jews wear amulets engraved with scripture or rabbinic blessings; Christians wear a cross or a medallion embossed with the image of a saint.

Among the best-known of this type of talisman is the hamsa, representing the “five fingers” of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Mohammed. This classic item has strayed far from its Bedouin roots and, as an article of handmade bracelets, is today enjoyed by fashionable women of all faiths.

You needn’t be a Bedouin woman to value silver jewellery, and particularly handmade bracelets with the protective hamsa. You’ll find many styles to choose from, on handmade bracelets and necklaces, at Magnolia!