Selling the jewels

Jewels are the exclusive property of women and can be exchanged for all kinds of goods in periods of need. This fact is important in societies where a family economy of self-sufficiency is developed, in which the female production of carpets and pieces of ceramics for sale in the markets is not enough to compensate for a poor harvest or the death of cattle.

The need to financially help the family group explains that many jewels combine coral or amber with plastic or coloured glass. At some moment, the noble material was exchanged for money with the aim of improving the family situation. Faced with these eventualities, women can decide to sell to a merchant the semiprecious stones that formed part of a jewel or dispense with the whole jewel.


The sale of the jewels allows us to observe them from beyond the aesthetic, symbolic, religious or family perspectives. Jewels are subject to an economic exchange made mainly by women.

The reasons that may lead to the sales are diverse:

— they allow the survival of the group;
— they guarantee the establishment of new family alliances: the matrimonies are expensive and require an investment covering the costs of the marriage and the dowry;
— they can be sold to fund armed struggles, as happened during the defence of Rif by Abd-el-Krim against the Spanish colonisers of the 1920s or during the war for Algerian independence at the end of the 1950s;
— they facilitate the migration of some of the members outside the community, especially abroad, where they expect greater guarantees of success.