Punjabi jewellery was a woman's property and her security. In a society where she could not inherit land, the gold given at her marriage was hers, and it was the family's reserve against a bad year.
The forms have names: the tikka on the forehead, the nath through the nose, the jhumka, the haar, the kanthi at the throat, the bangles, the pazeb at the ankle, the chooda of red and white bangles worn by a bride for months after the wedding.
Silver was for the ankles and for poorer households; gold above the waist. The rule about not wearing gold on the feet is general across the region.
The village goldsmith, the sunar, worked to order and remade old pieces into new ones, which is why very little old Punjabi jewellery survives: it was melted each generation.
The gold in a Punjabi household is still, in a real sense, the household's savings account, and it is still mostly in the women's names and mostly under their control, which is one of the few economic assets in rural Punjab that is.
Gold was the household's savings, held as ornaments on the women, and it was the collateral of last resort when a crop failed or a marriage came.
The pieces were regional and named: the tikka, the baazuband, the kaintha, the pippal patti, the jhumka, the punjeb, and the goldsmith who made them was a village functionary.
The gold loan trade has replaced the pawning arrangement and grown very fast in Punjab. The savings are still on the women and they are now formally mortgaged.