Here are a few historical photographs (1900 - 1935) from my digital archives, showing how the Karo Batak women of North Sumatra wore their Padung-Padung ear-weights, which were massive, normally solid silver (sometimes with low-karat pink-gold appended elements). They were fastened through the flesh-loop of distended earlobes, and then "pinched" into the cotton cloth headdress to support the weight (which earlobe flesh alone could certainly not support). I have weighed old Padung-Padung and it's not unusual for them to be over 2 kilos . . . of solid coin silver . . . that is a significant chunk of stored wealth.
I have many other historical photographs of Padung-Padung, if anyone's doing research on the subject.
It's interesting to note as well, how Padung-Padung seem to have been worn by women who owned them and could afford to own them, for a variety of activities and situations, and perhaps as a more-or-less everyday form of ornament.
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