Crafts The hard, white grains of Job's tears have historically been used as
beads to make necklaces and other objects. The seeds are naturally bored with holes without the need to artificially puncture them. Strands of Job's tears are used as Buddhist
prayer beads in parts of India, Myanmar, Laos, Taiwan, and Korea according to Japanese researcher Yukino Ochiai who has specialized on the ethnobotanic usage of the plant. They are also made into rosaries in countries such as the Philippines and Bolivia.
East Asia Japan In Japan, the grains growing wild are called ), and children have made playthings out of them by stringing them into necklaces. However,
juzu-dama was a corruption of
zuzu-dama according to folklorist
Kunio Yanagita. A type of Buddhist rosary called
irataka no juzu, which were hand-made by the
yamabushi ascetics practicing
shugendō training, purportedly used a large-grain type known as . but in Jomon period sites dating to several millennia BC.
Ocean Road hypothesis Yanagita in his Ocean Road hypothesis argues that the pearly glistening seeds were regarded as simulating or substituting for
cowrie shells, which were used as ornaments and currency throughout Southern China and Southeast Asia in antiquity, and he argued both items to be part of cultural transmission into Japan from these areas. Later scholars have pursued the validity of the thesis. Yanagita had reproduced a distribution map of the usage of ornamental cowries throughout Asia (compiled by
J. Wilfrid Jackson), and Japanese ethnologist alluded to a need for a distribution map of ornamental Job's tears, for making comparison therewith.
Mainland Southeast Asia Thailand and Myanmar The
Akha people and the
Karen people who live in the mountainous regions around the Thai-Myanmar border grow several varieties of the plant and use the beads to ornament various handicraft. The beads are used strictly only on women's apparel among the Akha, sewn onto headwear, jackets, handbags, etc.; also, a variety of shapes of beads are used. The beads are used only on the jackets of married women among the Karen, and the oblong seeds are exclusively selected, some example has been shown from the Karen in
Chiang Rai Province of Thailand. Strands of job's tears necklaces have also been collected from Chiang Rai Province, Thailand and it is known the Karen people string the beads into necklaces, such necklaces in use also in the former
Karenni States (current
Kayah State of Burma), with the crop being known by the name
cheik (var.
kyeik,
kayeik,
kyeit) in
Burmese. Job's tears necklace has been collected also from
Yunnan Province, China, The
Kayan of Borneo also use job's tears to decorate clothing and war dress. Some of the soft-shelled types are easily threshed, producing sweet kernels. The threshed (and
polished The grains of Job's tear can be used the same way as rice. It can be eaten cooked or even raw, as it has a slightly sweet taste. Further, the grains can be used for the production of flour. Job's tear grains can be processed in the same machine as rice. For the soft hulls, it is enough to press them over a sieve. The advantage of Job's tear over rice is that the grains do not need to be polished, as is the case with rice. Through this process, the rice loses its vitamins. This makes Job's tear a valuable food for undernourished populations in rural areas. The plant is noted in an ancient medical text
Huangdi Neijing (5th–2nd centuries BCE) attributed to the legendary Huangdi (Yellow Emperor), but fails to be noticed in the standard traditional
materia medica reference
Bencao Gangmu (本草綱目)(16c.). == Cultivation requirements ==