Neck rings are one or more spiral metal coils of many turns worn as an ornament around the neck of an individual. In a few African and Asian cultures neck rings are worn usually to create the appearance that the neck has been stretched. Padaung (Kayan Lahwi) women of the Kayan people begin to wear neck coils from as young as age two. The length of the coil is gradually increased to as much as twenty turns. The weight of the coils will eventually place sufficient pressure on the shoulder blade to cause it to deform and create an impression of a longer neck.
The custom of wearing neck rings is related to an ideal of beauty: an elongated neck. Neck rings push the collarbone and ribs down. The neck stretching is mostly illusory: the weight of the rings twists the collar bone and eventually the upper ribs at an angle 45 degrees lower than what is natural, causing the illusion of an elongated neck. The vertebrae do not elongate, though the space between them may increase as the intervertebral discs absorb liquid.
The South Ndebele peoples of Africa also wear neck rings as part of their traditional dress and as a sign of wealth and status. Only married women are allowed to wear the rings, called "dzilla". Metal rings are also worn on different parts of the body, not just the neck. The rings are usually made of copper or brass.
In the border mountains between Burma and Thailand live the Kayan (known also as Padaung) people, related to the Burmeses and Tibetans.
These are not to be confused with the Malayan people with the same name from Borneo, related to Dayaks. Today, their tribe numbers around 40,000 souls. Visitors to their villages are amazed by the neck rings worn by the women of the tribe. The neck rings of a woman are, in fact, a single brass coil placed around the neck. The first coil is applied when the girl is five years old and with the growing is replaced by a longer coil. The length of the coil and the added weight presses the clavicle and the rib cage, resulting
in the appearance of a very long neck. In fact, the neck does not elongate, this is impossible.
The "secret" of the "giraffe" women is that the clavicle and the ribs descend 45 degrees down from their normal position. The maximum weight of a coil is of 5 kg. This ancient tradition has unknown roots. The coils may have made Kayan women unattractive to slave trade. Some say that the coils are against tiger bite. More likely, it reflects the neck of a dragon.
For the Kayan women, the coils confer them a tribal identity, associated with beauty. In fact, the coils ensure that Kayan women will marry only inside their own tribe. The rings, once on, are seldom removed, as it is a somewhat lengthy procedure. Many thought that unfaithful women got, as a punishment, their coils removed, which led to their suffocation because their neck broke, but this is nonsense. Many women removed the coils when they felt it as obsolete or for medical examinations.
But most women prefer to wear the rings once their neck are elongated, because the skin portion kept so many years under the brass is often bruised and discolored. And many, after ten years or more of continuous wear, feel the collar like an integral part of the body. Kayan women wear coils also around their knees, ankles and wrists, but this will never capture the attention of the foreigners.
In South Africa, women of Ndebele people (about 600,000), closely related to Zulu, wear also neck rings (photo bellow). The practice starts when they get married, around 12 years of age. But their neck rings differ greatly of those of the Kayan, because the rings are individual, so they do not press against the rib cage and do not produce the impression of the elongated necks.
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