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Comments
Very nice piece, I love it.
Very nice spirit lock.
Beautiful spirit lock. I have a small collection of these I will post some day soon.
Toya: am looking Forward to seeing them. Love this type of thing. What a pity, I lived in Thailand and went several time to the Chiang Mai Region, but never collected These thing. (The Hmongs also make part of the Thai hilltribe People, or is this wrong? I am not sure anymore....... I used to see the Miao and have some children bracelet given to my daughters when they were babies).
Later: I googled it. According to the Information I found, the Hmong are also in Northern Thailand (Region Chiang Mai - Chiang Rai) and the Miao is a subgroup of them! Interesting! My daughters even had their black costumes with coloured embrodery brims - but I am afraid I lost them or gave them away.... Love your Spirit lock!!!! Will try to find out more on this Spirit lock.
This is a good silver spirit or soul "lock", which is worn at the end of a chain that comes down from a neckring, and which by finishing the piece as its bottom is regarded as completing a "circle" which was thought to keep the spirit within the body. For an example of a complete neckpiece containing a soul lock almost identical to this see Truus Daalder, *Ethnic Jewellery and Adornment*, p. 226 (and much other literature). These pieces are found in Thailand and Laos, worn by the Hmong and Lahu people. The Hmong are best seen as a sub-group of the Miao of South West China, and historically migrated out of China into Southeast Asia (northern Vietnam, Laos, Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand). (See the article on the Miao in Wikipedia.) It is common for the Hmong and the Miao to speak of each other as cousins, although many of the Miao in fact bear no relation to the Hmong group. A number of pieces of jewellery worn by the Hmong resemble those of the Miao, but there are also many differences. This piece, for example, is not a Miao one.
Thanks Joost. Very interesting. I was wondering what it was all about.
Thanks Chantal! I should have made plain, actually, that TWO chains (one on each side) run down from the neckring, and each chain gets attached to the top of this piece, i.e. to the big loop on the left and that on the right. A circlet is used at the end of each chain to attach the chain to the appropriate loop. I hope people can envisage matters this way. The soul lock is in effect a pendant at the bottom of the total piece, and as such acts as the "lock" to keep the soul inside ("it must not escape" - that is the amuletic thinking guiding the whole concept).
@Thanks Joost, very interesting and nice!!! Love that.
I have just posted an exceptionally elaborate neckring showing how these soul locks were worn. Please go to https://ethnicjewels.ning.com/photo/golden-triangle-very-elaborate-n.... Hope that that will make the situation clearer!