According to Bruce Metcalf.

On the nature of jewellery, paper by Bruce Metcalf.

On paragraph 13, Bruce Metcalf talks about traditional functions of jewellery, how jewellery serves as a redeemable investment and a portable bank account. It also shows that people today still use jewellery for the same reasons as the most primitive African tribesmen, where people wore a substantial portion of their wealth, of which today you can also convert it into goods and use it as a insurance policy.

The significance of the tradition of using jewellery for survival of the culture and the survival of woman's family in case of moving with times for the culture and in case of death of a husband for a woman, that symbolizes the fundamental purpose of the use of jewellery. Traditional jewellery has been used to create an association between the wearers status and his role in the culture for a specific purpose, the piece of jewellery has to fulfill a specific purpose or just as part of decorative purpose. Xhosa jewellery is mostly in large scale of Which it cannot be hidden and could  not be stolen as it was made for a person specifically.