BEADS AND BEADWORK
OF THE
AMERICAN INDIANS
A STUDY BASED ON SPECIMENS IN THE
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN,
HEYE FOUNDATION
BY
WILLIAM C. ORCHARD
***•—««.—••**
NEW YORK
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
HEYE FOUNDATION
192 9
^jt^j^ Smithsonian £ ^3 Institution X^}^ Libraries
Bequest
from the library
of
William C. Sturtevant
CONTRIBUTIONS
FROM THE
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
HEYE FOUNDATION
VOLUME XI
BEADS AND BEADWORK
OF THE
AMERICAN INDIANS
A STUDY BASED ON SPECIMENS IN THE
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN,
HEYE FOUNDATION
BY
WILLIAM C. ORCHARD
NEW YORK
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
HEYE FOUNDATION
19 2 9
LANCASTER PRESS, INC. LANCASTER, PA.
JAN 1 5 i
CONTENTS
PAGE
Illustrations 6
Dedication 11
Introduction 1.3
Shell Beads 17
Shell Beads in General 17
Runtees, or Shell Discs 24
Discoidal Beads 25
Pearl Beads 29
Bone Beads 29
Stone Beads 32
Drilling 38
Metal Beads 47
Beads of Gold 47
Beads of Silver 57
Beads of Copper 59
Wampum 61
Wampum-making Tools 70
Odd Forms and Materials 74
Seed Beads 74
Basketry Beads 75
Wooden Beads 75
Gum Beads 75
Earthenware Beads 76
Beads of Dried Otter's Liver 78
Native Manufacture of Glass Beads 78
Other Aberrant Objects 81
Trade Beads 82
Age and Distribution 82
Manufacture 82
Varieties 83
Trade Values 87
Polychrome Glass Beads 89
Funnel Beads 90
Sinew-like Beads 91
Woven Beadwork 91
Square Weave 92
The Heddle 98
Bow-loom 100
Variations of the Square Weave 103
Bias Weave 112
Net-like Weave 121
Sewing Techniques 128
Edgings 135
Bead Inlays 136
Beaded Baskets 138
5
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
PAGE
I. Dentalium-shells with incised and snake-skin decoration. Hupa
of California 18
II. Powhatan's robe in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 20
III. Girdle made of shells. Isleta pueblo, New Mexico 22
IV. Huron necklace of wampum beads with a runtee attached 24
V. Huron necklace of wampum beads with circular shell pendant.. 26
VI. Necklace of silver made by the Navaho 58
VII. Tubular copper beads from Hewlett, Long Island, New York.. 60 VIIa. Flattened spheroidal beads of copper from Hewlett, Long
Island, New York 62
VIII. a, Fragment of a wampum belt of the Seneca of Cattaraugus reservation, New York, b, X-ray photograph of the same,
showing the drilling of the beads 64
IX. a, Part of a wampum belt of the Seneca of Grand River reser- vation, Ontario, b, X-ray photograph of the same, show- ing the drilling of the beads 66
X. Regulation bunch of wampum prepared for trade by white
manufacturers in New Jersey 68
XI. Feathered breast-ornament decorated with seeds strung as beads and sections of bird-bones. Jivaro Indians of Ecuador and
Peru 74
XII. Star or chevron beads from Ontario 84
XIII. Examples of polychrome trade beads 88
XIV. Tahltan loom with unfinished weaving 92
XV. Woven wrapping for a baby-carrier. Mono of Inyo county,
California 96
XVI. Sauk headdress ornamented with imitation wampum 110
XVII. Part of an Iroquois sash with white beads interwoven 116
XVIII. Necklace of small glass beads from Guatemala 118
XIX. Comanche cradle with woven beadwork decoration 120
XX. Neck-ornament of the Washo 122
XXI. Headband from San Juan river, Colombia 124
XXII. Elaborate shoulder-ornament of netted beadwork. Mono of
Inyo county, California 126
XXIII. Example of overlaid or spot stitch on a Delaware shoulder-strap 128
XXIV. Caughnawaga moccasin decorated with beadwork 130
XXV. Raised beadwork applied to birch-bark by the Mohegan 130
XXVI. Girl's coat from the Eskimo of the west coast of Hudson bay. . 132 XXVII. Cloth leggings of the Chippewa decorated with silk applique
outlined with fine lines of beads 132
6
ILLUSTRATIONS 7
PAGE
XXVIII. Iowa Indian hair-ornament made from a bison-tail, decorated
with wampum beads. From a sacred bundle 134
XXIX. Needle-cases of walrus-ivory inlaid with parts of beads.
Eskimo of Point Barrow, Alaska 136
XXX. Votive bowls made from gourds and incrusted with glass beads.
Huichol Indians, Mexico 138
XXXI. Porno basket of coiled weave with glass beads interwoven 138
FIGURES
1. Shell beads from San Miguel Island, California 18
2. Bead made from the hinge of a marine bivalve. Santa Ines Indians,
Santa Barbara county, California 18
3. Incised dentalium-shell from Washington 20
4. Method of attaching olivella-shells to thongs. Modoc 21
5. Method of attaching olivella-shells to fiber cords. Modoc 21
6. Method of attaching olivella-shells to fiber cords. Modoc 22
7. Method of assembling small shells in making a belt. Isleta pueblo,
New Mexico 22
8. Detail of tying of olivella-shells to a base composed of two strings.
Nevada 23
9. Method of assembling shells in a crochet-like stitch. Nevada 23
10. Rectangular pieces of shell tied to fiber cords with sinew threads.
Nevada 24
11. Discoidal beads assembled with a crochet-like stitch. Nevada 24
12. Diagram of a runtee from a grave in Cayuga county, New York 25
13. Shell object used as a bead or pendant. Taltal, Chile 27
14. Massive shell beads from the Rio Ulua, Honduras 27
15. Ornament of shell from Santa Marta, Colombia 28
16. U-shape shell object from Santa Marta, Colombia 28
17. Notched rectangular shell bead from Santa Marta, Colombia 28
18. Unfinished and finished bone beads from Hawikuh, New Mexico 30
19. Bone beads from Point Hope and Bristol bay, Alaska 31
20. Bone bead with incised decoration from Maine 31
21. Various forms of stone beads from Mexico 32
22. Enlarged drawing representing the form of miniature stone beads
and two kinds of drilling. Peru 33
23. Calcite beads from Jamaica 34
24. Stone bead inlaid with silver, from Mississippi 35
25. Bead of rock-crystal from the Valley of Mexico 35
26. Crystal beads from Santa Marta, Colombia 36
27. Beads of unusual shape from Magdalena, Colombia 36
28. Stone bead from Santa Marta, Colombia 36
28a. Steatite beads from San Miguel island, California 3S
29. X-ray photograph of shell beads from Niagara county, New York,
showing drilling 39
30. X-ray photograph of a long tubular bead made from the columella of
a conch, showing drilling. From a grave at Burrs Hill, Rhode
Island 40
8 BEADS AND BEADWORK
PAGE
31. X-ray photograph of a large bead from Lake Medad, Wentworth
county, Ontario, showing drilling 40
32. X-ray photograph of the columella of a conch showing the results of
four attempts at drilling, two from each end. From Hiwassee island, Tennessee 40
33. X-ray photograph of a long tapering cylindrical bead made from the
columella of a conch, showing drilling. From Santa Barbara, California 41
34. X-ray photograph of a bead made from haliotis-shell, from Santa
Cruz island, California, showing drilling 41
35. X-ray photograph of a stone bead from St. Davids, Ontario, showing
drilling 41
36. X-ray photograph of a tubular bead of jade from Nicoya, Costa
Bonito, New Mexico, showing drilling 42
37. X-ray photograph of four cylindrical beads of turquois from Pueblo
Rica, showing drilling 42
38. Fragment of a shell bead from Lake Valencia, Venezuela, showing
drilling 43
39. Stone bead from Santo Domingo with two perforations 43
40. Stone beads from Guerrero, Mexico 43
41. Tubular drill with copper cutting edge 44
42. Hand-drill. From a Mexican painting in the Bodleian Library,
Oxford. (After McGuire) 44
43. Rotating the hand-drill. From a Mexican painting in Oxford Uni-
versity. (After McGuire) 44
44. Typical drill-point of stone, showing mode of lashing 45
45. Bow-drill 45
46. Pump-drill 46
47. Agate bead from Canazas, Province of Veraguas, Panama 46
48. Ovoid bead of shell from San Luis Obispo county, California 46
49. Enlarged photograph of a bead made of gold pellets fused together.
Ecuador 48
50. Enlarged photograph of a gold circlet with pellets attached. Ecuador 49
51. Enlarged photographs showing the fusion of gold pellets and rings.
Ecuador 50
52. Enlarged photograph of a bead composed of gold pellets and entwin-
ing wire. Ecuador 50
53. Enlarged photograph of two beads made of gold pellets and wire.
Ecuador 51
54. Enlarged photograph of a gold bead composed of pellets and wire.
Ecuador 51
55. Enlarged photograph of a bead of sheet-gold made to represent the
pellet-and-wire technique. Ecuador 52
56. Rings formed of pellets of gold. Ecuador 52
57. Beads made of spirally twisted gold wire. Ecuador 53
58. Spheroidal gold beads. Ecuador 54
59. Spherical gold beads with a collar around the perforations. Ecuador 54
ILLUSTRATIONS 9
PAGE
60. Spherical gold beads with pressed designs. Ecuador 54
61. Necklace of gold beads. Ecuador 55
62. Tubular beads of thin sheet-gold, from Sinu river, Colombia 55
63. Tubular gold beads with wire ornamentation, from Sinu river,
Colombia 55
64. Tubular gold beads from Bocas del Toro, Panama 56
65. Gold-covered earthenware beads from Ulua river, Honduras 56
66. Gold beads from Florida 57
67. a, Gold bead in the form of a human skull, from Mexico, b, Cast
gold bead from Colombia 57
68. Bead of laminated copper from Caney Fork, De Kalb county,
Tennessee 59
69. Copper bead from Niagara county, New York 60
70. Bead made of flattened brass wire spirally twisted. British Colum-
bia 60
71. X-ray photograph of an Iroquois wampum necklace from Brantford,
Ontario 66
72. Wampum made without steel tools: found at Lewiston, New York.. 68
73. Tools for making " Dutch " wampum 71
74. Wampum making : Roughly shaping a piece of shell before drilling 72
75. Wampum making: Squaring the ends of the shell by grinding.... 72
76. Wampum making : Perforating a roughly shaped bead 73
77. a, Necklace of basketry beads and sections of bird-bone; British
Guiana, b, Necklace of incised wooden beads; Venezuela 76
78. Tubular bead of earthenware from Venezuela 77
79. Pottery beads grooved for stringing. British Honduras 77
80. Bird-form gold objects from Colombia '81
81. Blue-glass beads from St. Eustatius island, West Indies 85
82. Glass beads probably made for Moorish trade. Ontario county, New
York 86
83. Yellow glass beads made to represent grains of corn. New Jersey.. 86
84. Glass beads distributed by early traders in the West 88
85. Glass " funnel bead " from Ontario county, New York 90
86. Bead made of twisted spun glass. Tlingit 90
87. Technique of the square weave showing the use of a doubled thread
for the weft. Tahltan 92
88. Breast-ornament of woven beadwork. Astakiwi of Modoc county,
California 93
89. Detail of square weave showing the method of reducing the number
of warp-strands. Astakiwi of Modoc county, California 94
90. Basket covered with beadwork, woven spirally. Astakiwi of Modoc
county, California 95
91. Finely woven shoulder-bag of the Chippewa 96
92. Technique of the square weave showing the use of a single thread
passed through the beads from each direction 97
93. Detail of a beaded panel inserted in the fringe of an Osage pipe-bag 97
94. Wooden heddle of the Menomini 99
95. Detail of the arrangement of threads and beads in weaving : two
threads for the warp, one thread for the weft 100
IO BEADS AND BEADWORK
PAGE
96. Apron loom and partly completed apron. Arakuna Indians, upper
Essequibo river, British Guiana 101
97. Detail of the upper edge of a woman's apron 101
98. Patamona woman weaving a bead apron on a bow-loom 102
99. Apron of a Makusi woman of Ireng river, British Guiana 103
100. Single-thread warp and weft. Winnebago 104
101. Beaded garters of the Sauk 105
102. Technique of the weave of Sauk beaded garters 106
103. Bow-loom such as was used in weaving wampum belts 107
104. Technique of single-thread weave 108
105. Technique of double-thread weave 109
106. Detail of a variety of cross-weaving by the Guaymi Indians of
Panama Ill
107. Detail of the " skip weave " in neckbands from Nicaragua 112
108. Neckband of bias weave with horsehair warp- and weft-strands.
Fox Indians 113
109. Wampum necklace of bias weave. Penobscot 114
110. Detail of the bias weave. Fox Indians 115
111. Detail of a three-strand braid streamer. Kickapoo 116
112. Detail of variation in bias weave. The beads are strung on the
vertical threads. Chippewa 116
113. Detail of part of a beaded woven sash. Seneca 117
114. Detail of the weave of a Comanche bag for cigarette wrappers of
cornhusk 118
115. Arrowpoints with woven bead decoration, used as charms. Ute.... H8
116. Detail of weave in fig. 115 119
117. Detail of woven beadwork on the Comanche cradle shown in pi. xix 120
118. Detail of the mesh of the Washo neck-ornament shown in pi. xx 122
119. Detail of the mesh of the headband shown in pi. xxi 123
120. Network bag of the Yuma of Arizona 123
121. Detail of the technique of the Yuma network bag 124
122. Netted collar of the Mohave 125
123. Detail of the technique of the netted Mohave collar shown in fig. 122 126
124. Single-string foundation of beadwork from Nicaragua and Panama 126
125. Detail of netted necklace from Rio Napo, Ecuador 127
126. Detail of technique of a beadwork necklace from British Guiana 128
127. Detail of the overlaid or spot stitch 129
128. Detail of the " lazy stitch " 129
129. Example of the " lazy stitch " on a panel of a Sioux beaded pipe-bag 130
130. Beaded pouch of the Iroquois of Grand River reservation, Canada.. 133
131. Detail of two-beaded edging 135
132. Detail of single-beaded edging 135
133. Detail of two-beaded line-work 136
134. Labret of walrus-ivory with bead inlay. Eskimo of Point Barrow,
Alaska 137
135. Lsevicardium shell ornamented with disc beads. San Miguel island,
California 138
136. Nootka basket made of cedar-bark with glass beads interwoven 140
To MRS. THEA HEYE
Through whose deep interest in the arts of the American Indian, and through whose generosity the Museum collections have been en- riched with many of its finest examples of beadwork, this volume is respectfully dedicated by
The Author
ii
INTRODUCTION
BEADS owe their origin to the desire by primitive man for personal adornment; but so ancient are they that attempts to trace their earliest sources have thus far been futile. So far as the New World is concerned, beads in a great variety of shapes and materials have been found on prehistoric sites almost everywhere, and some of them are undoubtedly of great age. It is therefore evi- dent that early aborigines of the Western Hemisphere were quite familiar with the use of beads for purposes of adornment, in some cases as potent charms and in others as a medium of exchange. But many of the uses to which beads were put by early man can only be surmised. Their use was and is worldwide. It is my purpose in the present paper to treat the subject of beads as they were employed by the American Indians, with special reference to the technique of beadwork.
The accepted definition of a bead is " a little perforated ball of any suitable material intended to be strung with others and worn as an ornament, or used to form a rosary." Forms in as great a variety as the materials of which they are made have been found, so that the " little perforated ball " is only one of many forms included in the term. The prevailing conception of a bead, however, is that of an object with a central perforation ; but in many instances the perfora- tion does not occur centrally, hence it becomes difficult to differentiate beads from pendants. Indeed there are so many forms that, unless it is perfectly obvious that the object is other than a bead, it has been given the benefit of the doubt and classed as a bead.
Many of the older varieties of beads are extremely crude, some ex- amples consisting merely of a suitably shaped stone or a pebble hav- ing a natural perforation, or a waterworn fragment of shell with either a natural or an artificial aperture. It is possible that some such objects may have been the earliest forms of beads. Other crude forms are those known as St. Cuthbert's beads, which are the single joints of the articulated stems of encrinites, a central perforation per- mitting them to be strung.
" On a rock by Lindisform St. Cuthbert sits and toils to frame The sea-born beads that bear his name."
13
14 BEADS AND BEADWORK
Many examples of crude beads have been found in association with others of exquisite workmanship, denoting that some of the former were in use after evident efficiency in beadmaking had been attained.
Materials used for beadmaking include gold, silver, copper; precious and semi-precious stones in great variety; bird, mammal, and fish bones, including teeth and ivory, and in some instances hu- man bone; many kinds of marine and freshwater shells, and pearls, and finally vegetal materials. Seeds were easily strung and made into necklaces and other ornaments; specimens of such, in all probability prehistoric, have been found intact with their original strings in dry caves. Even modern Indians still have a fondness for seeds used in this manner. From the far Northwest there are examples of strung seeds of the silverberry {Elceagnus argentea), while in the tropics highly-colored seeds are greatly admired by the natives. As esthet- icism progressed among the ancient peoples they became more and more proficient in the manufacture of beads of a truly artistic char- acter until ultimately remarkable results were achieved.
With the coming of Europeans to America there were introduced trade beads which were so highly prized by the natives that in many places they superseded the beads of native make. With noteworthy ingenuity the Indians developed an almost endless variety of objects calling for the use of trade beads, both for personal adornment and for the ornamentation of ceremonial and utilitarian articles. . The first record of the introduction of trade beads among the American Indians goes back to Columbus and his landing on Watling island on October 12, 1492.1 His log states :
Soon after a large crowd of natives congregated there. ... In order to win the friendship and affection of that people, and because I was con- vinced that their conversion to our Holy Faith would be better promoted through love than through force, I presented some of them with red caps and some strings of glass beads which they placed around their necks, and with other trifles of insignificant worth that delighted them and by which we have got a wonderful hold on their affections.
Oct. 15. A man from Conception Island was presented with a red cap and a string of small green glass beads.
This was the very beginning of the introduction and the use of foreign beads by the Indians. In later years travelers and traders found the natives on the mainland equally receptive, and from the
1 From a translation of Las Casas's abridgment of Columbus's First Voyage, in Fox, G. V., An Attempt to Solve the Problem of the First Landing Place of Columbus in the New World, pp. 354-55, 360, Washington, 1882.
INTRODUCTION 15
earliest historic times vast quantities of beads found their way among the Indians through various European channels, resulting in the well- known work in beads of glass and of other materials which has been so highly and artistically developed. That beads must have been an important factor in early trade is evident from the vast numbers that have been found in graves and on village-sites ; and, judging by the great quantities of bead-embellished artifacts from many tribes and covering long periods down to the present time, there has been little diminution in the demand.
Prior to the use of beads as a form of embellishment, porcupine- quills dyed in varying colors were applied with unsurpassed workman- ship to garments and ornaments, producing exquisite designs.2 The technique of quill decoration had attained such a high degree of per- fection at the time of the introduction of trade beads that the Indians found little or no difficulty in applying novel decorative methods with the new materials supplied them by Europeans.
The various techniques employed by the American Indians in pro- ducing their numerous forms of bead ornamentation, described in this memoir, are based on a study of the great number of specimens in the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. However extensive these collections may be, this account is not presented in the expectation that it will be found complete, for it is probable that other techniques may be shown by a study of other collections, while for the same reason other striking forms of beads of native make may have been omitted.
Various interesting references to the use of European beads in America are made by early travelers. Lewis and Clark,3 for example, found a certain blue bead to have great value among the Indians of the Columbia River region, the bead referred to probably being the " cut-glass bead " found in great numbers in the Northwest. These explorers stated that
in the evening Seven indians of the Clot sop 4 Nation came over in a Canoe, they brought with them 2 Sea otter Skins for which they asked blue beads &c. and Such high prices that we were unable to purchase them without reducing our Small Stock of Merchendize, on which we depended for Subcistance on our return up this river, mearly to try the Indian who
^ 2 Orchard, W. C, The Technique of Porcupine-quill Decoration among the North American Indians, Contr. Mus. Amer. Ind., Heye Found., vol. iv, no. 1, 1916.
3 Lewis and Clark, Original Journals, vol. in, p. 244, New York, 1905.
4 The Clatsop, a Chinookan tribe on Columbia river, Oregon.
16 BEADS AND BEADWORK
had one of those Skins, I offered him my Watch, handkerchief a bunch of red beads and a dollar of the American coin, all of which he refused and demanded ' ti-a-co-mo-shack ' which is Chief beads and the most common blue beads, but new of which we have at this time.
The writer wishes to acknowledge his great obligation to Dr. Elsie Fox, of New York City, for the X-ray photographs, reproduced here- in, which have been so helpful in the study of bead drilling, and to Mr. Louis Rosenberg, the well-known bead manufacturer and im- porter, also of New York City, who has generously given his time and knowledge concerning trade beads.
W. C. Orchard
SHELL BEADS
Shell Beads in General
FOR the manufacture of beads by the aborigines of America, no material was more commonly used than shell, as is shown by the vast numbers which from time to time have been recovered by excavation of ruins, village-sites, and graves throughout the two continents. Even since the introduction of glass beads there are individuals in some tribes of the United States and elsewhere who still practise the art of making beads of shell with primitive imple- ments, the only adaptation of introduced tools being that of steel in- stead of stone for drill-points, and perhaps hammer and pincers. Many an Indian may still be seen in the Southwest wearing strings of beautifully made shell beads of recent manufacture, particularly among the Pueblo tribes. These are regarded as of far greater value than any beads of foreign introduction for the reason that shell is a sacred material which, coming from the water, in a measure symbol- izes the power of that life-giving fluid to a people living in a semi- arid land whose religious practices have such an important relation to rainfall. It is only within comparatively recent years that glass beads have become popular with the Pueblos, and even now they are worn only by children to any considerable extent, although such beads found their way to these Indians with the coming of the first Spanish explorers and missionaries in the sixteenth century. A few objects of Pueblo manufacture, both ancient and modern, are decorated with glass beads, where flat surfaces could be covered. Sometimes Pueblo necklaces consist of beads, including those of shell, which the natives themselves have unearthed from ruins in their country.
The numerous forms of ancient shell beads have been so ade- quately described and illustrated in reports on archeological research that repetition will not be attempted. The chief forms of shell beads are discoidal, spherical, tubular, barrel-shape, ovate, rectangular, conical, truncate, and several odd forms in a wide range of sizes.
Many of the small marginella and olivella shells have been used with merely the point ground off or perhaps having an aperture made in the outer wall to permit the passage of a string. Dentalia likewise have been used as beads, with a string passing from end to end.
17
2
i8
BEADS AND BEADWORK
Fig. 1.— Shell beads from San Miguel island, Cal- ifornia. Actual size. (9/5122,5123 5125)
A large number of shell beads in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, usual with such material, were found by the Mrs. Thea Heye expedi- tion to San Miguel island, California. Some of these are worthy of special mention by reason of their incised-line decoration. Fig. 1, a, is a truncated cone bearing cross-hatching around the sides and with a narrow plain band at the apex. In b is seen another form of truncated cone with panels of cross-hatching around the sides. In c and d are represented more or. less spherical beads, the former having parallel lines encircling each end, with lengthwise lines be- tween, the latter cross-hatched to within a slight distance of the perforation at each end. In e is shown one of a considerable number of small discoidal beads incised with cross-hatching over the circumference. The sizes of this group vary from about one-sixteenth to one-quarter of an inch in diameter, and are of proportionate thick- ness. Many of the smaller examples are made from the narrow ends of dentalium-shells.
The decoration applied to this series of beads is remarkable when their size is considered. We have no knowledge of the manner in which this minute engraving was done. It can only be surmised that a small sharp chip of stone, possibly mounted in a wooden handle with bitumen, formed the incising tool. To accentuate the ornamentation, the engraved lines were rilled with black pigment, much of which still remains.
Beads made from the ends of dentalia show that the natural per- forations were enlarged to accommodate a thread to fit them for use as necklaces or other ornaments. The drillings in the larger beads, which can be more easily seen, show the use of such primitive tools as would have been used before the introduction of steel by Eu- ropeans.
Fig. 2 illustrates one of about a hundred beads collected from the Santa Ines Indians of Santa Barbara county, California, made from the hinge portions of a marine bivalve, probably the rock-oyster. All are more or less curved like that shown in the drawing, and each
Fig. 2. — Bead made from the hinge of a marine bivalve. Santa Ines In- dians, Santa Barbara county, Cali- fornia. (6/3881)
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
I
DENTALIUM-SHELLS WITH INCISED AND SNAKE-SKIN DECORATION. HUPA OF CALI- FORNIA. (1/2537)
SHELL BEADS 19
has a central depression. Perforations were made with a steel drill from each end, meeting in the center. In many cases the drilling reaches the surface in the depression, so that when the beads are strung the thread is there exposed. In several such beads the de- pression is filled with bitumen, and it is probable that all of them had once been similarly treated. The shell is white, veined with crimson, and in color presents a pleasing appearance ; but uniformity of size being disregarded, the ensemble is rather disorderly.
Dentalium-shells of the Pacific coast having been subjected to wide distribution through barter, they have been used as a medium of decoration by many tribes from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Some of the mid-continental tribes used them extensively, sewing them in pat- terns to their clothing and baby-carriers, wearing them in the form of necklaces and in other ways. But besides being esteemed for their decorative value, among some of the California tribes dentalia became of even greater value as a medium of exchange. The shells vary in length from about an inch to nearly three inches; but only the long shells had a monetary value, that is, those exceeding about an inch and three-quarters, the value increasing with the length. The Hupa valuation of a large dentalium in early days was equivalent to five dollars, while the smallest represented fifty cents. A detailed de- scription of the valuation is recorded by Goddard.1 A source of in- formation on the Shasta of northern California notes :
The property given for a wife formerly varied greatly, but an average price is said to have been one or two deerskins, fifteen or twenty long dentalia, ten or fifteen strings of disk beads, and twenty or thirty wood- pecker-scalps.2
When used as money the shells were wrapped spirally with narrow strips of snake-skin, sometimes with fish-skin; or a short section of a small snake-skin, while soft and pliable, might be stretched on the shell. The large end was further embellished with a little tuft of red feathers from a woodpecker's crest.
Two strings of dentalium-shell beads are shown in pi. i. One has the regulation skin wrappings; the other, in all probability intended for a necklace, is interspersed with glass beads. Four of the shells are elaborately ornamented with incised lines into which black pig- ment has been rubbed to emphasize the etching.
1 Goddard, P. E., Life and Culture of the Hupa, Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Archaeol. Ethnol., vol. i, 1903.
2 Dixon, R. B., The Shasta, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xvn, pt. v, p. 465, 1907.
20
BEADS AND BEADWORK
Several decorated dentalium-shells bearing incised designs (fig. 3) were found at an archeological site in Washington. Possibly these shells were thus ornamented and used by California Indians, later finding their way to the north through intertribal bar- ter and finally becoming prized possessions of their ultimate owners in Washington.
Two remarkable strings of beads were collected from the Santa Ines Indians of Santa Barbara county, California. These were made from sections of the smaller ends of dentalium-shells, and are remarkable for their numbers. One string is eight and a half feet in length, the other forty-one and a half feet. Containing on an average of thirty-three beads to the inch, there are approximately twenty thousand beads in the two strings. Many of the beads are less than a sixteenth of an inch in diameter. Irregular ends, which would result when the sections were severed from the shell, have all been smoothly ground, and, perhaps owing to continued use, have received a high polish. Even if spread over a long period of time the manufacture of these two strings would have proved a task requiring prodigious patience. California has been a prolific source of small shell beads. Thou- sands of small discoidal beads made from the walls of olivella or marginella shells, an eighth of an inch, more or less, in diameter, have been found, in many cases retaining the slight curvature of the shell. No doubt many were made for purposes other than stringing as neck- laces. Their uses are described in another section of this paper.
Other localities have yielded great numbers of similar beads, but not in such quantities as have been found in California.
Quantities of small shells of the genera marginella and olivella have been found from time to time during the exploration of mounds and graves, which have had their points ground off in order that a string might be passed lengthwise from point to lip and thus fit them for use as beads. In some instances they have been found in masses so disposed as to indicate their use as breast-ornaments or as decora- tions for robes, in which event broad surfaces had been covered. In other cases they have been found in such manner as to make obvious their use as necklaces. Again, they were scattered in such confusion that it was not possible to determine their purpose. Explorations by
Fig. 3.— Incised den- talium-shell from Wash- ington. (4/ 2956)
ORCHARD BEADS AND BEADWORK
POWHATAN'S ROBE IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD
SHELL BEADS
21
the Museum on Hiwassee island, Tennessee, brought to light several such cases.3 Here Harrington reported rinding two skeletons cov- ered from chin to waist with olivella-shells, which led to the belief that some kind of garment had been decorated with them. Another skeleton had the upper part covered with similar shells, which bore traces of having been worked into a pattern. Still another had a shell collar, while two had strings of shells which in all probability had served as necklaces. Disintegration had been so thorough in all these burials that the shells could not be removed and yet be kept in the relative positions in which they were found. The regular disposition was such that there is little or no doubt as to how the shells were used, although nothing re- mained to indicate whether they had been sewn to a leather back- ground or had been woven into a fabric.
A leather robe col- lected in the latter part of the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, said to have been the " habit of Pohatan, King of Virginia," which is now in the Ashmolean Mu- seum at Oxford, Eng- land, is ornamented with small seashells (Margin- ella nivosa) which have had their points ground off and have been sewn to the garment with threads of sinew. The design represents animal and human forms, and circular patterns (pi. u). There is every
Fig. 4. — Method of attaching- olivella-shells to thongs. Modoc. (10/9600)
Fig. 5. — Method of attaching olivella-shells to fiber cords. Modoc. (10/9601)
3 Harrington, M. R., Cherokee and Earlier Remains on Upper Tennessee River, Indian Notes and Monographs, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, misc. 24, 1922.
22
BEADS AND BEADWORK
Fig. 6. — Method of attaching olivella-shells to fiber cords. Modoc. (10/9601)
reason to believe that at least some of the material which Mr. Harrington found in Arkansas was originally of this form of deco- ration. Very little, if any, of this kind of work, aside from the
Ashmolean garment, exists today. Several specimens of a woven technique made by mod- ern Indians, however, are in the collections of the Museum of the Amer- ican Indian, which may represent survivals of an _ old art. Three spec- imens collected from the Modoc of California are in the form of neck- ___, ornaments, each having a different method of attaching the shell beads, as shown in figs. 4-6. Fig. 4 illustrates the weaving on soft-tanned leather thongs with fiber threads to fasten the shells, while the spec- imens represented in figs. 5 and 6 are supplied with a cord base and small threads to attach the shells to the cords. As the movements of the attaching threads are somewhat intricate, the drawings will indicate their trend more graph- ically than a description. Another ornament made of shells was collected from the Tigua Indians of Isleta pueblo, New- Mexico (pi. in). In this the cords and threads are made of a soft cotton material of native spinning
Fig. 7. — Method of assembling small shells in making a belt. Isleta, New Mexico. (5/240)
The movements of the
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
"-. '
GIRDLE MADE OF SHELLS. ISLETA PUEBLO, NEW MEXICO. (5/240)
SHELL BEADS
23
several threads are complicated, as is the case with the Modoc speci- mens, but are clearly shown in the drawing (fig. 7).
Lovelock cave, Nevada, has yielded specimens that reveal two in- teresting methods of attaching olivella-shells to strings for probable use as necklaces or bracelets. 3a Fig. 8 shows how two strings have been used as a base, with a single string passed through a shell and knot- ted to the double string. A number of shells have been attached in this way with a knot between each two shells, all drawn tightly together so that the knots are covered by the lip of the shell. Fig. 9 illustrates the common crochet stitch in which the thread is made to loop through one loop after another. The shells are attached by passing the thread through from point to lip between loops. In this case the shells are not close together, but are separated by two or three loops. The threads are well made of some uniden- tified fiber.
It is evident from the quantities re- covered that olivella-shells were very F -■ 8— D - P°Pu^ar wherever obtainable. They tail of tying of have been found in profusion in both Fig. 9.— Meth-
olivella-shellsto the eastern and the western area of hHn^^e^fTn a base composed AT . Dlins snens in
of two strings North America, and sparsely in the a crochet-like
Nevada. (13/ Middle West of the United States, f^^6™^'
where no doubt they found their way
by intertribal barter.
Other fragments were found in Lovelock cave with the shells
strung on strips of leather and on fiber cords. The points of all the
shells were ground off to permit the passage of a string. Two other
interesting techniques were found in the same cave, consisting of
3a While this is passing through press the report on Lovelock Cave by L. L. Loud and M. R. Harrington {Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arches ol. Ethnol., vol. 25, no. 1, Berkeley, 1929) makes its appearance. The authors describe (p. 105) three methods of attaching olivella-shells, one of which is similar to that shown in our fig. 8, except that our specimen has but one knot between the shells. Further examination of a number of fragments in the Museum collections, however, discloses the two-knot variety.
24
BEADS AND BEADWORK
some strung beads which were made from the outer wall of the olivella.
Fig. 10 illustrates a number of rectangular beads with grooved cuts across the convex side of the pieces of shell, instead of circular perforations. The grooves are cut deeply enough to penetrate the shell in the center of the curve. A strand of sinew was used to tie the beads, one overlap- ping the other, to a pair of fiber cords, a knot between each two beads. A pendant made from musselshell is at one end of the two strings.
The other technique is shown in eight fragments of what may have been a necklace. The combined length of the pieces is 21 inches, and there is every indication that they originally formed one piece. The beads are dis- coidal, three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, with circular perforations. They are threaded on a fiber cord in such manner that one overlaps the other (fig. 11), and are held in place with a stitch similar to that shown in fig. 9.
Fig. 10.— Rec- tangular pieces of shell tied to fiber cords with sinew threads. Nevada. (13/ 4660)
Fig. 11.— Dis c o i d al beads assem- bled with a crochet- like stitch. Ne- vada. (13/ 4647)
Runtees, or Shell Discs
Shell ornaments of the kind known as runtees, believed to be an English corruption of the French arrondi, " rounded," have been found in widely separated localities in the East. They vary from an inch to an inch and three-quarters in diameter, and from an eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch or more in thickness. They are supplied with two lateral perforations. There has been some discussion as to the use of these objects, some authorities considering them more of the character of pendants than of beads. During the exploration of a Munsee cemetery in New Jersey a number of runtees were found in positon on two skeletons, clearly indicating their use as beads in necklaces.4 On the other
4 Heye, G. G., and Pepper, G. H., Exploration of a Munsee Cemetery near Montague, New Jersey, Contr. Mus. Amer. Ind., Heye Found., vol. n, no. 1, 1915.
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
HURON NECKLACE OF WAMPUM BEADS WITH A RUNTEE ATTACHED. (11/7513)
SHELL BEADS
25
hand, in the Museum collections there is a Huron necklace consisting of wampum, beads with a runtee so disposed on the string as to jus- tify its designation as a pendant (pi. iv). Another Huron wampum necklace (pi. v) has a discoidal shell ornament, without the lateral perforations, which also is obviously a pendant. The terms bead and pendant, therefore, are arbitrary, and as it is not possible to segregate the two classes of objects either by size or by use, we shall treat the runtees as beads.
Seven runtees of approximately the same size were found with a burial in Cayuga county, New York,5 ornamented with an incised design as shown in fig. 12, in which the parallel lines at the side indi- cate the thickness of the ornament and the position of the lateral per- forations. Judging by the accuracy with which the conventional design on these runtees was produced, it is evident that they were made after the Indians had obtained iron implements, the pattern resulting from the use of a pair of dividers. The central point is very distinct on all the specimens, as are the points on the inner ring where the leg of the instrument was placed to incise the arcs that form the star-like de- sign. The cross-hatching between the lines made by the dividers was apparently scratched with a sharp-pointed implement. The perforation of each of these runtees is true and bears every indi- cation of having been made with a steel drill, but how the implement was rotated we have no means of knowing. Nevertheless, the use of implements supplied by Europeans, rather than detracting from his artistic ability, enabled the Indian to conceive new if more conven- tional decorative patterns.
Reference will be made later to runtees of the Virginia Indians mentioned by Beverley.
Discoidal Beads
The most numerous of all shell beads are those of discoidal form, which in diameter range from a sixteenth of an inch to an inch and a half or more. Their distribution is wide; indeed they were made
Fig. 12. — Diagram of a runtee from a grave in Cayuga county, New York. Actual size. (9/4831)
5 Skinner, Alanson, Notes on Iroquois Archeology, Ind. Notes and Monogr., Mus. Amer. Ind., Heye Found., misc. 18, 1921, p. 63. 3
26 BEADS AND BEADWORK
wherever suitable shells were obtainable, and from the fact that sea- shells have been found far in the interior of the continent it is evident that the raw material and probably the finished articles passed from tribe to tribe through barter. On the Pacific coast, particularly among the tribes of California, such beads, from a quarter to a half of an inch in diameter, have been called wampum and were a medium of exchange; and similar beads were used for a like purpose by the Indians of the East.
The comparative ease with which discoidal beads could be made is perhaps the reason for their abundance. The method of manufacture has been observed at Zufii pueblo, New Mexico, where they are still made in quantities. The principal implements are a pump-drill and a flat stone on which the shells are rubbed and shaped, although some of the more progressive beadmakers use also pincers for breaking the shells into suitable bits, somewhat larger than the finished bead is to be. Originally the shell was roughly shaped by means of a hammer- stone. In place of a stone drill-point, the end of a small three- cornered file is sharpened so that with a few revolutions of the pump- drill and the frequent application of water, the perforation of the roughly- shaped piece of shell is completed, first from one side, then from the other. The drilled pieces are then strung on a string eighteen inches or more in length, knotted at one end so that the un- finished beads may be crowded tightly on the string. A naked length of the string is held firmly in one hand and wrapped around with two or three turns. With the string of unfinished beads held in this manner a pressure exerted by the thumb on the last bead so crowds them together that they become almost rigid. In this condition the strung lengths are laid on the sandstone slab and rolled over the sur- face of the stone back and forth with the free hand, the hand holding the end of the string remaining stationary. Water and grit, some of which comes from the stone, are liberally supplied to facilitate the abrasion of the rough edges. A groove along one edge of the slab is provided as an adjunct to the smoothing operation. The beads are drawn back and forth in the groove, which helps to keep them of equal size. Sometimes a piece of wood with a corresponding groove is rubbed over the beads while lying in the stone groove.
By this process, not a very long one, a well-shaped and finished string of beads is produced. The shell most esteemed by the Zufii for. beadmaking is the Olivella biplicata, which has a slightly purplish tinge. Traders at Zufii accept such beads in strings of about twenty-
ORCHARD BEADS AND BEADWORK
HURON NECKLACE OF WAMPUM BEADS WITH CIRCULAR SHELL PENDANT. (11/7514)
SHELL BEADS
27
four inches in trade to the amount of two to three dollars, to the en- tire satisfaction of the Indians.
The same methods are applied by the Zufii in their manufacture of turquois beads, but a much longer time is expended on these because of the hardness of turquois and the greater difficulty both of drilling and of grinding ; besides, it is necessary to grind and polish both faces of a turquois bead, one bead at a time, a process not required in the case of the shell beads.
It may be assumed that most, if not all, of the prehistoric discoidal beads were made in the manner described, except, of course, that iron implements were not used.
Fig. 13 illustrates a shell bead or pendant of odd shape, one of a large number found in a grave in the vicinity of Tal- tal, Chile. All of them were perforated with a broadly tapering drill for stringing. They range in size from three-sixteenths to half an inch in width. There is nothing in connection with these objects to suggest how they were used. The protuberance at one end would prevent them from hanging regularly on a string in the form of a necklace, unless some- thing of the character of tubular or disc beads were placed between them. Possibly they were assembled in a mass as a breast ornament, or sewn to a garment in some such manner as elk-teeth are used by some of the Indians.
Some massive shell beads (fig. 14) from the region of Ulua river, Honduras, are of two forms, tubular and globular, both rather crudely shaped, especially the spherical ones. The tubular beads are about three inches long by seven-eighths of an inch in diameter, and have unusually large perforations, as shown in the illustration. The perfora- tions apparently were made by drilling from each end, and then
Fig. 14.-Massive shell beads from sm°othed throughout, so that the the Rio Ulua, Honduras, f. (4/3963) walls are nearly parallel. One
Fig. 13.— Shell object used as a bead or pen- dant, from Taltal, Chile. (13/5141)
28
BEADS AND BEADWORK
Fig. 15.— Ornament of shell from Santa Marta, C o 1 ombia. Actual size. (13/7701)
end of several of the tubes is encircled with two incised lines, which, however, have suffered from disintegration of the shell.
The globular beads have smaller perforations, which likewise were made by drilling from each end in such manner as to taper toward the center, where the point of junction is more or less irregular in each case.
An odd type of shell object is illustrated in fig. 15. A number of this general form, both quadrilateral and square, were obtained in Santa Marta, District of Magdalena, Colombia. In size they vary from a quarter to half an inch square, by seven-sixteenths to three-quarters of an inch long. There is a circular depression in each, made with a blunt-pointed reamer, through which are two perforations. A V-shape groove has been ground in each edge, probably for ornamentation. The fact that only one face has been thus treated suggests that these objects were not made to be strung in the usual manner, as in a necklace, while the two perforations would seem to indicate that they were designed to be sewn on a garment or on some ornament for personal adornment.
Another unusual shell form, represented in fig. 16, approaches an inverted U in shape, with a perforation through the center of the arc as indicated by the dotted lines. The mode of use of this object, as in the last specimen, is in doubt. It would of course be possible to string a number of such objects to- gether, but their shape would sug- gest use as pendants rather than as beads.
There were also obtained
Fig. 16. — U-shape shell object from Santa Marta, Co- lombia. Actual size. (13/7703)
Fig. 17.— Notched rec- tangular shell bead from Santa Marta, Colombia. Actual size. (13/7702)
were aiso oDiamea in Santa Marta a number of rectangular beads of shell (fig. 17), vary- ing in size from five-sixteenths to five-eighths of an inch in length and one-eighth inch thick. They are deeply notched from two op- posite edges toward the center and are provided with tapering per- forations drilled from the narrow end of each notch. There is no evidence to justify the classification of these objects as beads. The lengthwise drilling would permit stringing, and it would also be possible to sew them to a flat surface of fabric or of tanned leather
PEARL AND BONE BEADS 29
either as ornaments or as fastenings. These were found in associa- tion with the two odd forms from Santa Marta above described.
PEARL BEADS
Pearls from freshwater mussels have been perforated and used as beads. In the report on his researches on Tennessee river,6 Mr. M. R. Harrington describes and illustrates several such beads; and Prof. F. W. Putnam, while excavating a mound near Madisonville, Ohio,7 found " not less than fifty thousand pearls, most of them pierced and injured by heat." Ornaments made from haliotis pearls were found on San Miguel island, California,8 during excavations by the Museum expedition. Some of them were undoubtedly used as beads.
BONE BEADS
The use of bone, especially bird-bone, for the manufacture of beads, was widespread, and with few exceptions the product is so nearly uniform in character and the method of manufacture, in all probabil- ity, so similar that a general description will include the entire class. Such beads have been found in abundance, particularly in Pueblo ruins of the Southwest,9 where climatic and soil conditions are such that bone has been preserved for centuries.
The bones employed were usually the femur, ulna, or radius, pre- ferably of birds, although corresponding bones from small mammals were also used.
Fig. 18 illustrates a series of unfinished and finished objects from the ruins of the Zuhi pueblo of Hawikuh which were probably in- tended for beads. Many bones were severed and ground for other purposes, and in some cases it is not possible to determine which were beads and which were not. The drawing shows a bone (a) which has been scored preparatory to breaking off two sections. The scor- ing or cutting was done with a sharp-edged flake of stone, or with a piece of thin sandstone which would cut in the manner of a file.
> 6 Harrington, M. R., Cherokee and Earlier Remains on Upper Tennessee River, Ind. Notes and Monogr., Mus. Amer. Ind., Heye Found., misc. 24, 1922.
7 Proc. Amer. Asso. Adv. ScL, 1884.
8 Heye, G. G., Certain Aboriginal Artifacts from San Miguel Island, Cali- fornia, Ind. Notes and Monogr.. Mus. Amer. Ind., Heye Found., vol. vn, no. 4, 1921.
9 Hodge, F. W., Hawikuh Bone work, Ind. Notes and Monogr., Mus. Amer. Ind., Heye Found., vol. in, no. 3, 1920.
30
BEADS AND BEADWORK
<n^
d
Another section of bone (b) indicates by the jagged edges that it was not cut off entirely by scoring, but was broken off when the cut- ting was carried far enough to insure easy breaking. So many such fragments have been found as to lead to the belief that this was the common procedure in the primary process of beadmaking from bone. In the finished bead or tube (d) the jagged edges have been smoothed, in all proba- bility on a sandstone slab. This class of beads was no doubt very easy to produce, and it is found in a great variety of sizes. Fig. 19 represents three beads collected from the Eskimo at Bristol bay and Point Hope, Alaska. They are of denser bone than those obtained from birds, and are skilfully made and ornamented with incised designs. The specimens shown in a has a number of circular depressions around the center, no doubt intended to hold inlays which may have been small glass beads. The ornamentation of objects with inlaid beads, a com- mon practice among the Alaskan Eskimo, is elsewhere referred to in this paper (see page 136).
Two beads made from small bird-bones were found in a shellheap on Hog island near Pemaquid, Maine. One of them, although some- what disintegrated, bears an incised design (fig. 20) typical of the art of the modern Indians of Maine and is found especially on thin wooden objects, such as knife-handles, splint-cutters, etc. Nothing of European origin was found in association with these two beads, but some stone skin-scrapers and a few fragmentary bone awls were in the same shellheap, while excavation nearby also revealed bone
Fig. 18. — Unfinished and finished beads made of bone. Hawikuh, New Mexico.
BONE BEADS
31
cu
Fig. 19. — Bone beads from Alaska, a, c, Point Hope; b, Bristol bay. Actual size. (5/477; 9/123, 124)
implements, as well as pottery fragments. The absence of European materials suggests that the beads were made before contact with whites, or at least before Caucasian influence had affected native arts by blending the ancient and modern decora- tive devices of these Maine Indians.
Sections of fish-vertebrae required little or no artificial perforation for stringing. They have been found in many parts of the country under conditions which point conclusively to their use as beads.
In addition to the use of bone for bead- making, teeth in their entirety have also been employed, especially in Central Amer- ica and South America, where small monkey- teeth, perforated laterally through the root ends, were strung in the form of necklaces and have a particularly striking appearance when graded according to size. The teeth of other animals have likewise been used by Indians in those parts both for necklaces and for other articles of adornment.
The Indians of northern North America used the teeth of buffalo, wolf, and elk. In modern times the teeth of domestic animals have not been scorned as objects for personal adornment.
The mandibles of certain crustaceans have been employed to a slight extent for making necklaces, but their shape does not lend itself to orderly arrangement as beads. Perhaps the most gruesome of all neck- ornaments are human finger-tips that have been desiccated and perforated for stringing. Two such necklaces in the Museum, one from the Ute, were un- doubtedly prepared as charms rather than strictly for purposes of adornment. From such information as was obtainable it is learned that the finger-tips in one case were taken from a slain enemy, a state- ment not at variance with the recorded custom of taking a part of an especially valorous warrior in order that the victors might thus be- come embued with his spirit of bravery. Possibly the custom of tak- ing finger-tips bore some relation to that of extracting the heart of an enemy killed in battle and dividing it among the victors. Among Indians generally, however, such things were regarded with the same
Fig. 20.— Bone bead with incised decoration from Maine. Actual size. (9/3299)
32
BEADS AND BEADWORK
repugnance as by white people. Indeed there are some who have such great fear of the dead that they would not touch a corpse in any circumstance.
STONE BEADS
Fig. 21 illustrates a group of stone beads of the more common forms from Mexico. In several cases the beadmaker took advantage of the natural shape of a pebble and drilled it without any attempt at shaping. Very many such rude beads have been recovered during
*
'■ ". :■
*J?
rn
J
Fig. 21. — Various forms of stone beads from Mexico. Actual size.
excavations. It cannot be stated positively whether or not these were used for ornamental purposes ; but it hardly seems probable that such were employed as objects of embellishment when we consider the re- markable degree of esthetic culture attained by the early Mexican tribes, unless, there having been a well-recognized caste system in ancient Mexico, the esthetic taste of the lower classes may have been satisfied with ornaments so crude. There is a possibility that these
STONE BEADS 33
pebbles, unaltered except as to perforation, were used as tallies or counters, the fact that they are drilled not necessarily indicating that they were strung for use as necklaces. None of the Mexican fabrics reported by early chroniclers now survive, hence it is not possible to say that perhaps they were employed as loom- weights. Other beads of this group are symmetrically shaped and polished, and no doubt were used for personal adornment. There is a variety of perfora- tions— some are biconical, made with a blunt-pointed stone drill, others have nearly parallel borings effected with either a solid or a hollow drill of some material capable of carrying an abrasive. Fig. 21, g, h, j, are of jadeite; i is of Amazon stone; k is probably neph- rite ; the others are of unidentified stone.
In the Museum collections are many remarkable miniature stone beads from ancient Peru, Ecuador, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Nevada. Most of these tiny beads are made of a black stone, some identified as steatite. From Hawikuh, New Mexico,10 there are a number of beads of turquois, and thousands fashioned from the same material were found in the ruins of Pueblo Bonito xx in Chaco canon of the same state, among which are some very diminutive ones. Most of these turquois beads are discoidal. Some have tapering per- forations, others apparently were drilled through uniformly. It is prob- able that the tapering apertures in some of the softer stone were after- ward worked straight in the process of finishing the beads, while those of Fig. 22.— Enlarged drawing other beads were worn evenly from representing the form of minia- , . ture stone beads and the two
long use on a string. Turquois beads kinds of drilling. The central
and other ornaments have been found dot illustrates the actual size of
•, «.,. ,, - ,« -n 1.1 some of these beads. Peru,
in many localities south of the Pueblo
region through Central America to the Argentine Republic.
Fig. 22 illustrates the shape of the miniature beads and the two kinds of perforations. The size of the beads varies from about one- sixteenth of an inch and less in diameter, and are proportionately thin. Some of the perforations are so small that it seems almost incredible that a stone-pointed drill could have been used, yet that is
10 Hodge, F. W., Turquois Work of Hawikuh, New Mexico, Leaflet no. 2, Mus. Amer. Ind., Heye Found., 1921.
11 Pepper, G. H., Pueblo Bonito, Anthr. Papers Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xxvn, New York, 1920.
34
BEADS AND BEADWORK
the only plausible way in which such work could have been accom- plished. After the introduction of iron by Europeans the operation would have been comparatively simple. Many of these beads, how- ever, were found under such conditions as to leave no doubt of their prehistoric origin.
The method employed by modern Indians in manufacturing dis- coidal stone beads is the same as that described for shell beads of similar form : that is, to shape the stone roughly with the white man's
tools, such as hammer, pincers, and file. The pieces are next bored with a steel point ro- t a t e d with a pump-d rill or perhaps with a bow-drill (figs. 45, 46). The drilled pieces are then strung on a wire or a string, and the edges are ground and smoothed on a flat or a grooved stone provided with fine grit and water, until discs as nearly perfect as possible are produced. The faces of the disc are also smoothed by rubbing on a flat stone. The prehistoric peoples undoubtedly employed similar methods, using chipping implements made of bone or antler, and hammerstones, instead of metal tools. What motive power was employed for their drills is not positively known; but the spindle- whorl was in use in prehistoric times, and there is every reason to believe that the same principle was applied to a drill. The tiny bead represented with the enlarged drawings in fig. 22 is one which, with others, came from Peru.
Fig. 23 illustrates a series of calcite beads from Jamaica. They
Fig. 23. — Calcite beads from Jamaica. Actual size.
(12/575-578)
STONE BEADS
35
Fig. 24.— Stone bead inlaid with silver, from Missis- sippi. Actual size. (7601)
have biconical perforations, apparently made with a stone-pointed drill. Some of the beads are constricted and incised at the middle, and supplied with a lateral perforation at that point.
Fig. 24 illustrates a stone bead approaching the shape of a pear, unique both in form and decoration, found in Mississippi. The parallel perforation is through the center from top to bottom. The surface is incised and inlaid with fine threads of silver, which apparently have been rubbed or, burnished with some such object as a polishing stone, causing the metal to spread and grip the rough edges of the incisions, thus holding it in place. The design suggests leaf-stems or grasses.
Represented in the Museum collections from Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador, are beads of rock-crystal in various forms and sizes. Fig. 25 illustrates an example from the Valley of Mexico, oblate spheroid in form, three-quarters of an inch in maximum diameter and seven-sixteenths of an inch following the perforation. The conical perforation was drilled from each end, meeting at the center in a small opening. A broad-pointed stone drill may have been used to commence the drilling, but by reason of the high polish of the wall of the perforation it is reasonably certain that some such implement as a wooden rod was used with some fine abrasive material to com- plete the work. The surface of the bead is similarly polished.
Outline drawings of tubular beads of rock- crystal from Santa Marta, Colombia, are pre- sented in fig. 26. These are of interest be- cause of the drillings, which may be clearly seen in the specimens and are indicated by dotted lines in the drawings. The complete bead shown in a is bored from each end to- ward the center, the tapering aperture bearing evidence of the wearing of the drill as the operation progressed. In this instance a stick was probably used as a drill, which was capable of carrying a fine grit during its revo- lutions : an arduous task indeed when one considers the hard material of which the beads are made. Nothing is known of the method of
Fig. 25.— Bead of rock-crystal from the Valley of Mexico. Actual size. (5/6977)
36
BEADS AND BEADWORK
i
/
VI
I I
I I
I !
I I
I •
i I
i !
* i
1 I
ill
y,
revolving the drill in this example. There are several ways in which the operation may have been performed : these are described in an- other section of this paper. The dotted lines show, by the perfora- tions not meeting at the center, that the drill was not held true, which is frequently the case when perforations were made from each end of a bead of this type.
Fig. 26, bJ shows a fragment of a bead, one end of which is pol- ished, while the other is fractured. The drilling in this instance was
evidently made with a shaft of wood which wore away more rapidly than that used for drilling the other specimen. Both are beautifully polished on the outer surface. From the same place there are several other beads of this class, of sizes ranging from a quarter of an inch to two inches long, all of them equally well finished.
In the same collection are forty or more small discoidal beads of rock-crystal, from three-sixteenths to three-eighths of an inch in diameter and from one-sixteenth to three- sixteenths of art inch thick. These were all perforated from both sides with an ex- tremely wide-angle drill-point, the tapering depressions averaging half the width of the bead.
From the same place in Colombia are a number of cylindrical beads of carnelian, ranging in length from three-eighths of an inch to three
Fig. 26.— Crystal beads from Santa Marta, Co- lombia, showing drilling, f. (13/7715, 7716)
Fig. 27. — Beads of unusual shape from Magdalena, Colombia. Actual size. (13/7723, 7724)
Fig. 28. — Stone bead from Santa Marta, Colombia. Actual size. (7/ 7717)
inches. All are remarkably well fashioned and polished. Their per- forations were made by the method employed in drilling the crystal beads.
STONE BEADS 37
In this group are included some odd-shaped objects, also made of carnelian, which from their drilling were evidently intended to be used as beads. The forms are illustrated in fig. 27. Each is notched at one end; the perforations are lengthwise, one extremity being at the bottom of the notch.
Discoidal, barrel-shape, and spherical beads, from one-quarter to about seven-eighths of an inch in diameter, are represented in the carnelian group. All of them were made with the same care and skill as the beads of rock-crystal, and evidently are the product of the same people.
Another unusual form of beads, from the same region in Colombia, is shown in fig. 28. There are several of this kind from three-six- teenths to seven-sixteenths of an inch in length. The perforation is shown by the dotted line. These objects are of a hard gray stone, and although properly classifiable as beads, they may have been used more as pendants. The knotted end of a cord might easily be con- cealed in the tapering perforation.
Worthy of mention are six four-sided tubular beads of catlinite from Ledyard, Cayuga county, New York, five-eighths of an inch to two and a quarter inches in length, by an eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch in breadth. All of them have been perforated from end to end with a steel drill. Except for the drilling they are not examples of fine workmanship, as the sides are misshapen.
Beads of many kinds of stone have been found throughout the continent, but so far as the Museum collections are concerned, Mexico has contributed a far greater number than any other area. Most of these are of simple forms, such as are shown in fig. 21, drilled for suspension without other artificial modification. Other forms are tubular, cubical, barrel-shape, and spheroidal. In addition to artifi- cial shaping, some examples are decorated. A few are fashioned in the form of a muskmelon, with deeply cut and rounded ribs ; others, of the tubular type, are embellished with incised lines around the ends. All are beautifully shaped and polished.
Beads similar to those of Mexico have been found in Central Amer- ica as well, but they are not so numerous. California 12 has yielded large numbers of stone beads of many sizes. The simple ones are of hard stone, but when it was desired to produce more or less elaborate
12 Heye, G. G., Certain Aboriginal Artifacts from San Miguel Island, Cali- fornia, Ind. Notes and Monogr., Mus. Amer. Ind., Heye Found., vol. vn, no. 4, 1921.
38
BEADS AND BEADWORK
beads the readily worked steatite was used. In fig. 28a is shown a representative series of beads from San Miguel island.
From California also are beads of amethyst, but these are relatively few, perhaps because of the scarcity of the material or the difficulty of working it.
Fig. 28a. — Steatite beads from San Miguel island, California. (9/5018, 5019, 5021-25)
Actual size.
Among the objects from Peru is a tubular bead of lapis lazuli, beautifully shaped and polished, about three-quarters of an inch long and a quarter of an inch in diameter.
DRILLING
Vast numbers of beads fashioned by the natives from stone, shell, bone, and metals have been recovered during the excavation of both prehistoric and historic sites. In style they vary from the extremely rude to the most elaborate and ornate in form and design; indeed it would be difficult to praise too highly the skill displayed in the manu- facture of some of the beads of the ancient Americans. So remark- able are the perforations of some of the beads of bone, shell, and particularly stone, that the student is puzzled to know how they were
DRILLING 39
made. Metal beads, later to be described, were so fashioned that drilling was unnecessary. Bone offers little resistance to a stone- pointed drill, or even to a drill made entirely of wood when used with grit as a cutting agent, and shell may be drilled by the same process with almost equal ease.
The method of perforating thin discoidal beads of bone or shell is simple. A hard stone point set in the end of a wooden shaft and revolved in alternating directions between the hands quickly pene- trated these materials; but if the object to be drilled was very hard
Fig. 29. — X-ray photograph of shell beads from Niagara county, New York, showing drilling. (8/8550) Photograph by Dr. Elsie Fox.
stone, more time would necessarily have been required. If drilled from one side only, a tapering perforation resulted. The drilling of globular or tubular beads was usually commenced from opposite sides. In cases where a stone drill-point was used, the perforation became more or less biconical according to the shape of the point ; but if an- other type of point was used, such as a rod of wood or a reed with sand as an abrasive, the wall of the perforation had a tendency to be uniform. So far the drilling is a comparatively easy process, if time and patience are not considered ; but when some of the long, slender, tubular beads are examined, — examples that show it to have been far from probable that a stone-pointed drill was used, — one gains no positive knowledge of the manner in which the perforations were made. Many kinds of drills of various materials have been sug- gested as having been used for this purpose.13 It is well known that sand used in conjunction with a rod of wood of suitable texture will cut the hardest stone, hence one may conjecture that some such ma- terials were employed in boring the long tubular beads referred to. For such a drill the wood must of course be just tough enough to hold the grains of sand firmly in its surface. Soft wood could not thus hold the sand and it would wear away much more quickly than the
13 Handbook of American Indians, Bull. 30 Bur, Amer. Ethn., pt. 1, Wash- ington, 1907, s.v. Drills and Drilling. McGuire, J. D., A Study of the Primi- tive Methods of Drilling, Rep. U. S. Nat. Mus. for 1894, Washington, 1896. Holmes, W. H., Handbook of Aboriginal American Antiquities, Bull. 60 Bur. Amer. Ethn., pt. 1, Washington, 1919.
40
BEADS AND BEADWORK
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DRILLING
41
material being perforated, as would likewise be the case with wood that was too hard to allow the sand to become embedded.
Fig. 33. — X-ray photograph of a long tapering cylindrical bead made from the columella of a conch, showing drilling. The cross lines are the convolutions of the shell. From Santa Barbara, California. (2/3370) Photograph by Dr. Elsie Fox.
Reproductions of a number of X-ray photographs by Dr. Elsie Fox are introduced (figs. 29-37) to illustrate some of the remarkable results obtained by drilling. Some of the objects may appear to be
Fig. 34. — X-ray photograph of a bead made from haliotis-shell, from Santa Cruz island, California, showing drilling. (6/3157) Photograph by Dr. Elsie Fox.
too long for use as beads; but from the nature of their finish, the amount of work evidently expended on them, and the fact that they are drilled from end to end for the accommodation of a string or a
Fig. 35. — X-ray photograph of a stone bead from St. Davids, Ontario, show- ing drilling. (5/4169) Photograph by Dr. Elsie Fox.
thong, they may perhaps be so classed. It may be mentioned that most of the objects illustrated were made before the introduction of metal tools.
Judging from the borings of the tubes, the most feasible method by which the work could have been accomplished was by the use of a
42
BEADS AND BEADWORK
Fig. 37. — X-ray photograph of four cylin- drical beads of turquois from Pueblo Bonito, New Mexico, showing drilling. Actual size. (5/1162) Photograph by Dr. Elsie Fox.
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rod and sand. Several methods of rotating the drill may have been known to the makers, other than the tedious processes of twirling it between the hands or of rolling it along the thigh with one hand while holding the object being perforated against the point of the drill with the other.
A good example of drilling is shown in fig. 38, which illustrates a broken shell bead from Lake Valencia, Venezuela. The boring has been done from each end, apparently with a solid drill, probably of wood,, with grit as a cutting agent. The markings on the wall of the perforation clearly show where particles of the grit; adhering to the drill during a number of revolutions, have cut deeply into the shell. The tapering perforation is the result of the wearing of the drill as the operation pro- ceeded. The lower part of the fracture shows the meeting point of the drilling from the two ends.
An odd feature is presented in the drilling of many stone beads from some of the islands of the West Indies. These beads are all tubu- lar, and some bear incised decoration. In ad- dition to the usual lengthwise perforation, a lateral drilling has been made. Fig 39 illus- trates a bead treated in this manner, collected with others in Santo Domingo. The dotted lines indicate the courses of the two perfora- tions. Nothing in connection with these beads has been found that would suggest the purpose
DRILLING
43
of the extra perforation. Similar, specimens have been found in Montserrat, St. Vincent, Jamaica, Cuba, and Porto Rico.
A number of tubular stone beads with un- usual perforations have been found in Guer- rero, Mexico. They range from three-quarters of an inch to about two inches in length, and are of the same general form as that shown in fig. 40, a, which is of nephrite and measures an inch and a quarter in length. Instead of the perforation passing entirely through the bead, short drillings have been made from each end, which are met by others bored in the sides.
A discoidal jade bead from Guerrero (fig. 40^ b) has been partly drilled with a hollow drill. The core is intact, with the exception of a small flake broken from the top. For some reason this drilling was not finished, but a smaller perforation was made through the core. The implement used for the larger drill- ing was hollow, with sand as an abrasive ; but as its wall is slightly undercut from the top down, the use of a metal cylinder that had spread during the drilling is suggested, rather than a reed, which would have worn quickly and made a boring that would have become smaller in diameter as it proceeded. The smaller perforation, which tapers very slightly, in all probability was made with a solid pointed drill of wood or bone, or of some such material capable of carrying a sharp cutting grit as the drill revolved. Hollow
Fig. 38. — Fragment of a shell bead from Lake Valencia, Vene- zuela, showing drill- ing. Actual size. (6/1641)
Fig. 39.— Stone bead from Santo Domingo, W. I., with two perforations. Actual size. (13/6190)
pIG# 40. — Stone beads from Guerrero, Mexico, size. (9/3118, 1/1202)
Actual
44
BEADS AND BEADWORK
metal drills have been described by McGuire.14 Fig. 41 ilustrates a drill with the cutting edge made of sheet-copper wrapped around a wooden rod which constitutes the drill-shaft. The fact that the edges of the copper are not soldered or fused makes it possible for such a drill-point to expand during its rev- olutions. There is no positive information as to the method of revolving the drills, but some reproductions of two native Mexican drawings (figs. 42, 43) show
• t
Fig. 41.— Tubular drill.
Fig. 42. — Hand-drill. From a Mexican painting in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. (After McGuire)
drills revolved between the palms of the hands of the workmen. A typical stone point for a drill is illustrated in fig. 44, showing a method of lashing the point in the split end of a wooden shaft.
Fig. 43. — Rotating the hand-drill. From a Mexican painting in Oxford University. (After McGuire)
14 A Study of the Primitive Methods of Drilling, Rep. U. S. Nat. Mus. for 1894, Washington, 1896.
DRILLING
45
The bow-drill, the pump-drill, and probably the strap-drill were
known from early times, and there is every reason for attributing at
least some of the bead perforations to the use of one or the other of
these effective implements. The long tubular bead from Costa Rica
(fig. 36) exhibits an expenditure of many days'
labor in the drilling alone, without considering
the amount of work necessary to smooth and
polish the exterior.
Fig. 44.— Typ- ical drill-point of stone, show- ing mode of lashing.
Fig. 45. — Bow-drill.
Fig. 45 represents the usual form of bow-drill. The shaft is shown with a block on its upper end ; this may be of wood or of any other suitable material, and is furnished with a depression in which the shaft revolves. The purpose of the block is to hold the shaft in its required position while the perforation is being made, and to exert the proper amount of pressure or weight. Many of the Eskimo make the block so that it may be conveniently held between the teeth, and it is supplied with a stone or an ivory socket to receive the shaft, thus giving the worker a free hand for holding the object to be drilled. In other parts of the continent the block is held in one hand while the bow is worked with the other; in this case an assistant is required to hold the object, unless some other means has been contrived.
The pump-drill (fig. 46), a very efhcient implement, consists of a vertical shaft, a disc or spindle-whorl, and a horizontal cross-bar pro- vided with a round aperture large enough to slide freely up and down
46
BEADS AND BEADWORK
the shaft. A string is attached to each end of the cross-bar and passed through a small hole at the upper end of the shaft, or other- wise is secured at that point. Several twists of the shaft wrap the
string around spirally and at the same time draw the cross-bar toward the top of the shaft. Downward pressure on the cross-bar unwraps the string and re- volves the shaft, which, by the added mo- mentum given by the disc acting as a fly-wheel, wraps the string around the shaft again in the opposite direction and draws up the cross-bar ready for another down- ward pressure. These movements keep the drill revolving first in one direction, then the other. The pressure is controlled
Fig. 46. — Pump-drill.
Fig. 47.— Agate bead from ! Cana- zas, Prov- ince of Vera- guas, Pana- ma. §. (13/ 1837)
mainly by the weight of the disc, which may be made of wood,! stone, or pottery, attached firmly to the shaft. Any kind of cutting point may be secured in the end of the shaft. Two forms are shown in figs. 41 and 44 — one a tubular drill of thin copper, the other a stone point lashed to the shaft.
From a number of agate beads found at Canazas, Province of Veraguas, Panama, one is selected to show the manner of drilling. Fig. 47 illustrates the form, the dotted lines indicating the course of
Cross section
Front view
Fig. 48. — Ovoid bead of shell from San Luis Obispo county, California, show- ing drilling, h (11/3948)
the perforation which has been made from each end of the bead. The beads belonging to this group are not all of the same form and size, some being tubular and others spherical or nearly so. But they all bear the same remarkably fine polish, to produce which, even
METAL BEADS 47
with modern implements such as are used by a lapidary, would be no slight undertaking. The labor expended by primitive workers, there- fore, in making such a bead with a stone hammer perhaps to shape the object roughly, other stone implements to smooth and polish the surface, and hardwood splints and sand to make the perforations, can perhaps be imagined. Beads of agate have been found wherever the material is native.
Fig. 48 represents a shell bead made from the wall of a conch, from San Luis Obispo county, California. The curvature of the shell would not permit a straight perforation from one end, hence, as the drawing indicates, the drilling was made from each end, meeting in the center. The appearance of this perforation would suggest the use of a wooden drill with sand.
METAL BEADS Beads of Gold
Perhaps the most remarkable of all beads made by early Americans are some of those fashioned from gold. Many have been brought to- gether for the Museum from various localities in Central America and South America. A very large number of such beads came to light at La Tolita on the Island of Tola near the mouth of Santiago river, north of the city of Esmeraldas, Ecuador. Negroes living in the vicinity of La Tolita have from time to time dug in the mud for gold. These operations have yielded quantities of beads and other orna- ments of such exquisite design and workmanship as to be worthy of the highest praise for their minute detail of execution. Indeed some of the work is so microscopic that it is difficult to understand how some of the objects could have been made without the aid of a magni- fying glass and the delicate tools of a modern jeweler. According to Prof. M. H. Saville these objects are all examples of pre-Columbian art.
The beads alone will be described in this paper; the other orna- ments will be the subject of another publication. With these finished objects quantities of prepared gold and unfinished specimens were found, but practically nothing that sheds light respecting the character of the tools used in their manufacture, with the exception of about a dozen small chisel-like objects of gold which indeed may be no more than prepared material, and some pieces of thin beaten gold in the form of tweezers.
48
BEADS AND BEADWORK
Under the classification of prepared gold there are some small pellets, ranging from about one sixty-fourth of an inch to about one- eighth of an inch in diameter, many of which have been used in the manufacture of beads and other ornaments. It has been suggested that these pellets may have been made in some such way as bird-shot was formerly manufactured, i.e., by pouring melted metal through a screen and allowing it to fall from a greater or lesser height into water. Dr. E. P. Robinson, of Newport, Rhode Island, who is greatly interested in mechanics of ancient peoples, has demonstrated a method of producing small pellets of gold in a manner much more practicable, and has probably employed the same method as did the goldworkers of La Tolita. With the aid of a blowpipe and a flame Dr. Robinson has reduced some small pieces of gold to a molten state on an asbestos block. As soon as they reached that state they as- sumed a globular form which they retained after cooling.
There is little doubt that the ancient Indian goldsmiths understood the value of a blowpipe and used it, but of what it was made we can
only surmise. A hollow reed would an- swer the purpose, and as nothing of a less perishable material has so far been found, we may assume that something of the kind was employed.
Other forms of prepared material from La Tolita are in the shape of wires of various gauges, and strips or ribbons that appear to have been beaten into shape rather than drawn. There are also some sheets of gold which no doubt were ham- mered into shape. It is not improbable that an assortment of tools, probably of stone, were overlooked by the treasure- hunters in their zealous search for the precious metal.
In some cases the beads and other or- naments have been made of a combination of the forms of prepared material, and in others entirely of one form, but in every instance remarkable perfection of workmanship is shown.
Fig. 49 illustrates a bead made entirely of globules or pellets com-
i
Fig. 49. — Enlarged photo- graph of a bead made of gold pellets fused together. The small object in the cor- ner shows the actual size of the bead. Ecuador. (1/ 7452)
METAL BEADS 49
posed of six rows or tiers with six globules in a row. There is an opening through the middle of the group for the passage of a string. The illustration reproduces an enlarged photograph of the specimen and also of the bead in its actual size, three-sixteenths of an inch long. There are many specimens of beads fashioned in this manner which are smaller in their ensemble and are composed of smaller globules ; but the larger specimen was selected for convenience in illustrating. In this type of bead, globules of uniform size were placed together in tiers, probably around a central core of non-fusible clay or mud to hold them in place while being permanently brought into an insepa- rable mass, apparently by fusing. Many specimens have been ex- amined with a view of substantiating the theory that fusing was em- ployed, but no trace of anything suggesting the use of solder has been discovered. On the other hand there are a number of specimens showing where the parts have run together, their identity being al- most lost, in all probability owing to the application of too great heat. The spaces between the globules illustrated in fig. 49 show distinctly where the gold was melted just enough to form a bridge between the component parts, some of the joints showing a greater amount of fusion than others. Some form of flux must have been used to bring about the proper union of the globules, but what it was is, like the tools, an unanswered question. After the fusion had taken place, the core, if of the material suggested, could easily be removed, leaving the clear perfor- ation found in all the beads of this kind.
Fig. 50 illustrates a circlet composed of twelve globules fused to a hoop of wire. This particular form may have been made for some purpose other than a bead. It is of interest, however, on account of the size I
and regularity with which the globules are ^ -_ ^ , , . , , , • Fig. 50. — Enlarged pho-
disposed around the ring. tograph of a gold circlet
The objects shown in fig. 51 without ™jth Pellets attached. , ,, . . 1 . _ The actual size of the
doubt were made for use as beads. The specimen is shown in the
globules are mounted between two rings of ?™r' Ecuador- 0/
wire fused together. In b of this figure is
shown an imperfect ring on the upper side ; the ends are not cut square
and have not been brought together, but few cases of this kind occur.
Fig. 52 presents an intricate twisting of a wire around the globules
between the rings above and below. Considering the actual size of
50
BEADS AND BEADWORK
the bead, which is shown by the side of the enlargement, it is diffi- cult to reach a conclusion as to how the parts were held together, let alone being shaped, before fusing.
In fig. 53 are shown the large central beads forming part of the necklace illus- trated in fig. 61. The larger one is com- posed of twelve globules mounted between two hoops of twisted square wire, and the whole between hoops of round wire, four rings in all. The maximum diameter of this example is a quarter of an inch. Fig. 54 illustrates a more complicated %, piece of work, consisting of twelve glob-
Fig. 51. — Enlarged pho- tographs showing the fu- sion of gold pellets and rings. The actual size of the objects is shown in the corners. Ecuador. (1/7453)
Fig. 52. — Enlarged photograph of a bead composed of gold pel- lets and entwining wire. Ecua- dor. Note the actual size shown in the corner. (1/7453)
ules with a square wire interwoven. In the figure two of the rows of globules are obscured, but the ornament presents the same appearance on the opposite side. The passage for a string is length- wise of the bead, and the square wire is looped at each end, making circular openings. The actual size of the bead is shown by the side of the enlargement.
The enlarged photograph of a tubular bead reproduced in fig. 55 commands special interest for the reason that this ornament is not composed of the usual globules and wire, but is formed from a piece of thin sheet-gold, with a pattern, evidently produced by hammering or by pressure, representing a series of wires turning spirally around the tube and encircling the openings at each end, while between the
METAL BEADS
51
wires a number of globules are inserted. An overlapping joint ex- tends lengthwise of the bead where the pattern matches perfectly, dis- playing remarkable skill in workmanship. The overlapping joint has the appearance of having been fused rather than soldered.
Fig. 53. — Enlarged photograph of two beads made of gold pellets and wire. Ecuador. Actual size of the beads is shown in the corner. (1/1229)
Fig. 54. — Enlarged and actual size of a gold bead composed of pellets and wire. Ecuador. (1/7456)
In fig. 56 is shown a group of small rings of varying diameters, each composed of a number of gold globules fused together, which may be incomplete parts of beads to which hoops of wire were to have been added, or they may have been made for use as ornaments other than beads.
Fig. 57, a, b, reproduce photographs enlarged and in actual size of a form which is very suggestive of beads. Quantities are in the col- lection, and are of varying sizes. This particular form does not occur as parts of other ornaments from La Tolita, and as there are many of them which are of uniform size as to length and diameter of wire, there is justification for classing them as beads. With very few exceptions they are made of a rounded wire wrapped spirally, prob- ably around a core of the desired size, which could be withdrawn when the wrapping was completed. This core may have been an- other piece of gold wire. The exceptions are some that are made of a wire which has the appearance of having been rolled from a square strip, probably between two flat stones. Lengthwise irregularities
52
BEADS AND BEADWORK
visible on the rounded surface are shown distinctly in the enlargement (fig. 57, c), which indicate where the edges of the square strips may have been turned over in the rolling operation, causing the irregulari- ties to appear. Such markings might occur on a drawn wire, but it is hardly possible that the early goldworkers knew anything of that process of wire-making.
A group of spheroidal beads made of thin sheet-gold is shown in fig. 58. They are composed of two hemispherical parts. The sheet- gold must have been pressed or hammered into a die made of some
material much harder than the gold, which would resist the pressure and allow the gold to be shaped into a small cup-like form. It is possible the die may have been made of stone, as might have been a stamp to fit the die, for many of the beads are of the same shape and size. The edges of the cup-like sections have been brought together, some overlapping a little, and the two parts fused into one. It is possible that the joint was rubbed or smoothed, since many of the finished
I
Fig. 55. — Enlarged pho- tograph of a bead of sheet-gold made to repre- sent the pellet-and-wire technique. Ecuador. The actual size of the bead is shown at the side. (1/ 7456)
O o o
0 *> 0
o
o o
o o o
Fig. 56. — Rings formed of pellets of gold. Ecuador. Actual size. (1/7426)
beads show little if any joint, hence their appearance of having been made after the cup-like pieces were formed, but before they were fused together. A few of the spheroidal beads are provided with a collar of wire around the perforations (fig. 59).
METAL BEADS
53
A series of hollow beads, illustrated in fig. 60, are ornamented with pressed designs. Although very much battered, three in this group show conclusively that they were made in the same die, in two pieces and in the manner described for the beads shown in fig. 58. These designs alone estab- lish the fact that a form of stamp and die was used by the ancient artisans in the manufacture of hollow beads.
Fig. 61 portrays a neck- lace of beads made of glob- ules between two or more rings which are shown in detail in fig. 53. It is not intended to convey the im- pression that the beads are on the original string. The conditions at La Tolita are such that anything of such a perishable nature as a string, whatsoever the ma- terial, would have disap- peared through decay.
Other parts of South America, and also Central America, have yielded gold beads, but to the present time nothing has been dis- covered in any way re- sembling the remarkably
Fig. 57. — Beads made of spirally twisted gold wire. Ecuador. Enlarged and actual sizes. (1/7448)
minute beads from the re- gion of La Tolita.
A number of beads were collected on the Sinu river, Colombia, two of which are illustrated in fig. 62. They are crudely made of thin sheet-gold rolled into tubular form. As may be seen in the illustration, the ends are turned in,
*******
*******
******* *******
54 BEADS AND BEADWORK
either to eliminate the sharp edges or for ornamentation. The length- wise joints are crudely made and seem to have been slightly fused.
Five other tubular beads from the same region show a highly advanced degree of the goldsmith's art (fig. 63). They are half an inch long and a quarter of an inch in diameter. An inner tube of very thin gold forms the foundation for two whorls of a
T7 co cu mi uu A tt a ,i ,*,a<>a\ continuous wire, and a Fig. 58. — Spheroidal gold beads. Ecuador. (1/7434) . , ,
wire wrapped around
spirally at each end of the tube. There are indications that the parts were held together by fusing. One of the beads of this group, how- ever, instead of having a spiral wire at each end has a three-strand braided wire wrapped once around. This feature exhibits a remark-
* U 9 f * $
*IM <& % 9
Fig. 59. — Spherical gold beads with a collar around the perforations. Fig. 60. — Spherical gold beads with
Ecuador. (10/9925) pressed designs. Ecuador. (10/9957)
able piece of work. The braiding is so close and tight that it seems hardly possible that this could have been accomplished with metal wires. The ends of one of these braided bands are so well brought together that the joint is not visible.
In strong contrast are some tubular beads from Bocas del Toro, Chiriqui, Panama (fig. 64). These are made of hammered sheet- gold with unevenly cut overlapping edges along the lengthwise joint, and with no attempt at fusion or other process for making a tight joint.
METAL BEADS
55
A very fine-grained pottery has been used for making the three well-shaped spherical beads shown in fig. 65, from the region of the Ulua river, Honduras. They are covered with a thin sheet of gold.
Fig. 62.— Tu- bular beads of thin sheet-gold, from Sinu river, Colombia. (5/ 3983)
Fig. 61. — Necklace of gold beads. (1/1229) See fig. 52 for detail of beads.
Fig. 63. — Tubular gold beads with wire ornamentation, from Sinu river, Colombia. (5/3982)
A micrometric reading gives two one-thousandths of an inch thick- ness for a fragment of the covering. The gold has been applied and made to adhere in a way that not a trace of a joint is visible. The surface appearance suggests burnishing, which might have been done after fusion to obliterate overlapping joints and uneven places; but this is conjectural. How this remarkable piece of work was accom- plished must remain a mystery. Reference to ancient Mexican clay beads covered with gold-leaf has been made by Saville.15
15 Saville, M. H., Goldsmith's Art in Ancient Mexico, Ind. Notes and Monogr., Mus. Amer, Ind., Heye Found., misc. 7, 1920, p. 17.
56 BEADS AND BEADWORK
Examples of gold beads from Florida in the Museum collections are shown, actual size, in fig. 66. They are nearly solid and appear to
have been made somewhat after the manner of spun metal. It is possible that in such cases a piece of gold was. drilled and put on a spindle of some kind which could be revolved, and while re- volving, instead of heavy pressure being applied as in the case of spun metal, the piece of gold was hammered into shape and the hammer marks afterward re- moved with some abrasive mate- rial. The large oblate spheroidal bead on its end in the illus- tration shows where the gold has
Fig. 64.— Tubular gold beads from been beaten out and over the Bocas del Toro, Panama. (8200) .., .. ,, .
core-like center, spreading a thin
sheet into the required bead form. The smaller bead in the center of
the group shows the effect that might be produced by hammering and
revolving, but in this example the gold has not been spread so much as
in the larger one. The two barrel-shape beads were made in the same
manner.
Fig. 65. — Gold-covered earthenware beads from Honduras. (6/1293)
From the Valley of Mexico there is a bead in the form of a human skull (fig. 67, a). It is of solid gold, with the perforation made from side to side, and is seven-sixteenths of an inch long.
A bead of unusual workmanship is shown in fig. 67, b, which is of an inferior quality of gold cast in a mold. The metal is very thin, and the design is composed of eight spiral discs with rings at each
METAL BEADS
57
tt
end and one in the middle. This is an excep- tionally fine piece of casting. A translation of the Nahuatl text describing the methods employed by the Aztecs in making molds and casting gold, recorded by Sahagun, is to be found in Saville's work above cited. The specimen illustrated was found in the Magdalena valley, Colombia, where
W 0
<9
F i g. 67.— a, Gold bead in the form of a hu- man skull, from Mexico, b, Cast gold bead from Colombia. (7035, 10/2603)
y
Fig. 66. — Gold beads from Florida. (1/7967, 68, 71, 75, 76)
it is very probable the ancient goldsmiths employed a method similar to that described by Sahagun.
Beads of Silver
A number of necklaces recently collected consist of beads made of flattened silver wire bent around an implement resembling a knitting- needle. The ends are brought very close together, evidently with pliers or a vise-like tool, and then hammered and rubbed until the joints were almost obscured. Many of the beads have been shaped into a flattened spherical form. A few of the larger ones are barrel- shape, some are hammered four-sided or nearly square, while others are of a short tubular form. One of the strings has a number of gold beads inserted at intervals of about six inches ; these are made of a flattened wire in the same manner as those of silver, with no solder or fusing at the joints. There are seven strings of these beads, each about nine feet long, containing sixteen beads to the inch, with an
58 BEADS AND BEADWORK
average of three-thirtyseconds of an inch in diameter. A few glass beads are interspersed. These are the product of the Araucanian Indians of Chile.
During the last half-century Navaho silversmiths have produced, among other ornaments, a distinctive form of necklace composed of spherical beads and pendants. PI. vi illustrates one of these typical necklaces. Distributed through about half of the length of the neck- lace are a number of flower-shape pendants with two beads between the pendants, and two crescentic ornaments, one within the other, are placed centrally in pendant form. Such necklaces have found favor also among the Pueblo Indians. The floral pendants are said by the Hopi to represent squash-blossoms, which to them are an em- blem of fertility.16
Mexican pesos formerly furnished the silver, which was melted and run into molds made of easily worked sandstone. The beads, however, were not cast, but were made of two cup-shape pieces soldered together. The coins were annealed and hammered into thin sheets, discs of the required size were cut from the sheet-silver, and were shaped with die and matrix. Before they acquired more suit- able equipment the Navaho and Pueblos employed as a die the rounded head of a bolt or other suitable piece of iron ; the matrix is preferably a depression in the end grain of a piece of hard wood, just the size and shape required for the half of a bead. After being an- nealed the silver becomes somewhat softened and yields more readily during the shaping process. A disc is laid over the matrix and driven into the depression with the die and a hammer, which produces the cup-shape half of a bead. The edges, unavoidably rough and uneven, are ground and smoothed on a flat piece of sandstone. Perforations are made in the cups and afterward they are placed on a stiff wire in pairs forming globes, with their edges pressed closely together and secured with wrappings of fine wire. A mixture of borax and saliva forms the flux with small fragments of silver, which is applied to the joints for soldering the sections together. A number of beads so ar- ranged are placed in a fire and the temperature raised to a sufficient degree with bellows to make the solder run and hold the edges to- gether. Irregularities are filed off and the beads are polished. The floral pendant consists of a bead with four petals and a perforated shank. The petals are cast, and with the shank are soldered to the
16 On the age of silverworking among the Navaho and Pueblos, see Hodge. F. W., in El Palacio, vol. xxv, nos. 14-17, Santa Fe, N. Mex., Oct. 6-27, 1928.
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
NECKLACE OF SILVER MADE BY THE NAVAHO. (6/2129;
METAL BEADS
59
bead. The beads in the necklace illustrated are seven-sixteenths of an inch in diameter; the length of the string is twenty-six inches. The crescentic appendage is cast and bears a stamped design. The stamps are made of any suitably shaped piece of steel or iron with a pattern cut in one end. Many such implements of different designs may be found in a silversmith's kit. With a hammer the various pat- terns are stamped into the silver. The artist is not alone dependent on the stamps, for some of the ornamentation is produced with a graving tool often made of a piece of a three-cornered file with its end ground to a fine cutting point. This they use just as a civilized en- graver would do. All this excellent work is accomplished by the Navaho without the aid of a measure or an instrument of precision.
Dr. Washington Matthews 17 has presented a detailed description of the methods employed by Navaho silver- smiths in the manufacture of a wide variety of silver ornaments.
Beads of Copper
I
■'!
Copper was used to some extent by Indians in the manufacture of utilitarian objects and ornaments, in- cluding beads. A great quantity of the metal was avail- able in the Lake Superior region, although native cop- per is found also in Virginia, North Carolina, Ten- nessee, Arizona, New Mexico, Nova Scotia, and other localities. Beads of copper have been found in nearly all these areas, and in other parts where either the raw material or the finished articles must have been imported from various sources. A number of copper beads from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have been recorded, and Prof. F. W. Putnam found one on Prince Edward Island.18 These in all probability were made from the copper found in the respective regions.
Specimens from Tennessee include a cylindrical bead (fig. 68) which tapers from the center toward each end. Its size is three and three-eighths inches long and about five-eighths of an inch in maximum diameter. It was made from a copper nugget, hammered thin, then rolled and hammered
Fig. 68.— Bead of lam- inated copper from Caney Fork, De- Kalb county, T e n n. f . (4/7983)
17 Second Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., 1881-82, Washington, 1883.
18 Putnam, F. W., Shell Heap on Prince Edward Island, Amer. Antiquarian, Jan.-Feb., 1896.
6o
BEADS AND BEADWORK
into shape. Though badly corroded, the laminations are distinct and indicate definitely the mode of manufacture. Other beads from Tennessee, of tubular form but having- parallel sides, are made from sheet-copper rolled into tubes of a single thickness of metal, with the edges slightly overlapping. These were probably made from copper obtained from early colonists in the form of kettles. These beads vary in size from a quarter of an inch to nearly two inches long and about a quarter of an inch in diameter.
A burial at Hewlett, Long Island, yielded two hundred or more beads of varying shapes and sizes. A number of the tubular form were included (pi. vn), but corrosion was so far advanced that it is difficult to determine how these were made. Some of them at least have the ap- pearance of being other than rolled sheet-metal, and are probably of European production. A number of flattened spherical beads were also with the burial (pi. vn a) ; their general appearance is such as to suggest that they were European trade articles.
The smallest copper beads brought to our notice are some on the original string, which has been preserved by the action of the copper salts on the fiber. An en- larged drawing (fig. 69) shows how they are made of small strips of the metal bent in tubular form with the edges brought together on an even plane. They were found with a burial near Lewiston, Niagara county, New York, and are three sixty-fourths of an inch in diameter. With them were found, also on the original string, some beads which are about twice as large, the two sizes being on separate strings. From a nearby lo- cality a number of tubular objects, presumably beads, some of copper, others of brass, were gathered. These range in size from three-quarters of an inch to four and a half inches in length, and three-sixteenths to half an inch in diameter. These tubular objects are not so well made; the edges are irregular and overlap. The sheet-metal of which the larger ones are made, it is safe to say, was supplied by white people, and the even thickness of the edges of the smaller ones sug- gests the same origin for their material.
A necklace and a breast-ornament of copper from one
Fig. 69.— Copper bead from Niag- ara county, New York. Enlarged from %4 in. (8/221)
Fig. 70.— Bead made of flattened brass wire spirally twisted. Ac- tual size. (13/7862)
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
1
1 ' I
1
I
■••;
TUBULAR COPPER BEADS FROM HEWLETT, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK. (8/3738)
WAMPUM 6l
of the Salish tribes of British Columbia are composed of a number of long brass beads (fig. 70) made of wire which has been ham- mered flat and twisted spirally. The drawing shows their aver- age size. Some of them have parallel sides instead of the tapering ends shown in the drawing. Glass beads and seeds are interspersed.
WAMPUM
Under the classification of shell beads, perhaps those commonly known as wampum may be considered the most important. During the early days of white settlement in the northern continent wampum was a recognized medium of exchange, or, when arranged on strings in a particular order as to color, served in the conveyance of inter- tribal messages, or, when woven into a form known as belts, played an important part in the ratification of treaties. In personal adorn- ment the belts were very effective. Woven into the form of collars, or on strings as necklaces, ear-pendants, or wristlets, they were more commonly used.
The wampum to be discussed in this section is to be understood as having the form of small cylindrical shell beads, averaging about a quarter of an inch in length by an eighth of an inch in diameter — not the discoidal beads found at prehistoric sites, although these may have functioned in a somewhat similar way. The discoidal type of beads still survives, and in some localities they are called wampum and are used to some extent as money. But the wampum in mind is the cylindrical kind which was made in two colors, white and purple. The quahog, or hard-clam ( Venus mercenaria) , furnished extensively the material for the manufacture of both colors of wampum, although other shells of a suitable nature, such as the columellas of the conch, were used for the white beads. Some exception, it might be added, has been taken to the use of the quahog-shell as not being thick enough for making the dark beads. The reason, perhaps, is because the necessary large clams are infrequently found among our present food supply. The large clam is too old and tough for food, the smaller, younger clams being the only ones found marketable; consequently we see little or nothing of the larger clams and therefore find it diffi- cult to imagine a shell thick enough for wampum-making. Beau- champ,19 however, illustrates a fragment in which the purple part of the shell is three-eighths of an inch thick.
19 Beauchamp, W. M., Wampum and Shell Articles, Bull. 41, N. Y. State Mus., Albany, 1901.
62 BEADS AND BEADWORK
Wampum is mentioned in the records of many early travelers in North America, but their references bear chiefly on its origin, and only vaguely on the mode of manufacture, the materials used, its uses and value.
According to Loskiel —
Wampom is an Iroquois word meaning a muscle. A number of these muscles strung together is called a string of wampom. . . . Before the Europeans came to North America, the Indians used to make their strings of wampom chiefly of small pieces of wood of equal size, stained either black or white. Few were made of muscles which were esteemed very valuable and difficult to make; for, not having proper tools, they spent much time in finishing them, and yet their work had a clumsy appearance. But the Europeans soon contrived to make strings of wampom, both neat and elegant, and in great abundance. The Indians immediately gave up the use of the old wooden substitutes for wampom, and procured those made of muscles, which, though fallen in price, were always accounted valuable.20
Closely following that of Loskiel, Isaac Weld's reference to wampum is of interest:
The wampum is formed of the inside of the clam shell, a large sea shell bearing some similitude to that of a scallop, which is found on the coasts of New England and Virginia. The shell is sent in its original rough state to England, and there cut into small pieces, exactly similar in shape and size to the modern glass bugles worn by ladies, which little bits of shell constitute wampum. There are two sorts of wampum, the white and the purple ; the latter is most esteemed by the Indians, who think a pound weight of it equally valuable with a pound of silver. . . .
The use of wampum appears to be very general amongst the Indian na- tions, but how it became so, is a question that would require discussion, for it is well known that they are a people obstinately attached to old cus- toms, and that they would not therefore be apt to adopt, on the most grand and solemn occasion, the use of an article they had never seen until brought to them by strangers ; at the same time it seems wholly impossible that they should ever have been able to have made wampum from the clam shell for themselves ; they fashion the bowls of tobacco pipes, indeed, from stone, in a very curious manner, and with astonishing accuracy, considering that they use no other instrument than a common knife, but then the stone which they commonly carve thus is of a very soft kind; the clam shell, however, is exceedingly hard, and to bore and cut it into such small pieces as are necessary to form wampum, very fine tools would be wanting.
20 Loskiel, G. H., History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians of North America, pt. 1, p. 26, London, 1794.
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
o o o o o
O m o • G
§9o
n|g Lte
' d i I
i '*L j*1
FLATTENED SPHERICAL BEADS OF COPPER FROM HEWLETT, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK. ACTUAL
SIZE. (8/3746)
WAMPUM 63
Probably they made some use of the clam shell, and endeavoured to reduce it to as small bits as they could with their rude instruments before we came amongst them, but on finding that we could cut it so much more neatly than they could, laid aside the wampum before in use for that of our manufacture.21
Lawson,22 writing of the manufacture of wampum in the South, states :
If this Wampum Peak be black or purple, as some Part of that Shell is, then it is twice the Value. This the Indians grind on Stones and other things till they make it current, but the Drilling is the most difficult to the Englishmen, which the Indians manage with a Nail stuck in a Cane or Reed. Thus they roll it continually on their Thighs with their Right-hand, holding the Bit of Shell with their left, so in time they drill a Hole quite through it, which is a very tedious Work.
In an early record of wampum in New England, by Roger Wil- liams;23 giving its value as a medium of exchange, he writes :
The Indians are ignorant of Europes Coyne; yet they have given a name to ours, and call it Moneash from the English money.
Their owne is of two sorts ; one white, which they make of the stem or stocke of the Periwincle, which they call Meteauhock, when all the shell is broken off: and of this sort six of their small Beads (which they make with holes to string the bracelets) are currant with the English for a Peny.
The second is black, inclining to blew, which is made of the shell of a fish, which some English call Hens, Poquauhock, and of this sort three make an English peny.
They that live upon the Sea side generally make of it, and as many make as will.
There seems to have been considerable fluctuation in values during the period of Roger Williams' observation, for he states :
One fathom of this their stringed money, now worth of the English but five shillings (sometimes more) some few yeeres s^nce was worth nine, and sometimes ten shillings per Fathome. . . .
They hang these strings of money about their necks and wrists; as also upon the necks and wrists of their wives and children.24
21 Weld, Isaac, Travels through the States of North America and the Prov- inces of Upper and Lower Canada during the Years 1795, 1796, 1797, pp. 390- 391, London, 1799.
22 Lawson, John, History of Carolina, p. 194, London, 1714.
23 Williams, R., A Key into the Language of America (1643), p. 128, Provi- dence, 1827.
24 Ibid., pp. 129, 131.
64 BEADS AND BEADWORK
Referring to the Indians of Virginia, Beverley 25 wrote :
The Indians had nothing which they reckoned Riches, before the Eng- lish went among them, except Peak, Roenoke, and such like trifles made out of the Cunk-sheW. These past with them instead of Gold and Silver, and serv'd them both for Money, and Ornament. . . .
Peak is of two sorts, or rather of two colours, for both are made of one Shell, tho of different parts ; one is a dark Purple Cylinder, and the other a white ; they are both made in size, and figure alike, and commonly much resembling the English Buglas, but not so transparent nor so brittle. They are wrought as smooth as Glass, being one third of an inch long, and about a quarter, diameter, strung by a hole drill'd thro the Center. The dark colour is the dearest, and distinguish'd by the name of Wampom Peak. The English-men that are call'd Indian Traders, value the Wampom Peak, at eighteen pence per Yard, and the white Peak at nine pence. The Indians also make Pipes of this, two or three inches long, and thicker than ordinary, which are much more valuable. They also make Runtees of the same Shell, and grind them as smooth as Peak. These are either large like an Oval Bead, and drill'd the length of the Oval, or else they are circular and flat, almost an inch over, and one third of an inch thick, and drill'd edgeways. Of this Shell they also make round Tablets of about four inches diameter, which they polish as smooth as the other, and sometimes they etch or grave thereon, Circles, Stars, a Half Moon, or any other figure suitable to their fancy. These they wear instead of Medals before or behind their Neck, and use the Peak, Runtees and Pipes for Coronets, Bracelets, Belts or long Strings hanging down before the Breast, or else they lace their Garments with them, and adorn their Tomahawks, and every other thing that they value.
They have also another sort which is as current among them, but of far less value ; and this is made of the Cockle shell, broke into small bits with rough edges, drilled through in the same manner as Beads, and this they call Roenoke, and use it as the Peak.
These quotations, excepting those from Weld and Beverley, pro- vide no very definite description as to the shape of the wampum, whether it was discoidal or tubular. However, the fact is well estab- lished that few tubular beads have been found on prehistoric sites. In later burials, on the other hand, great numbers have been found, but always associated more or less with objects of European origin. It is therefore safe to assume that the particular style of wampum under discussion was mostly made after the introduction of iron by
25 Beverley, Robert, History and Present State of Virginia, bk. in, chap. 12, pp. 58, 59, London, 1705.
.
£3;
O co P Q
n
a -i < d
I- QC
h- Q <
O LU
X
o»- 5
< 5
o ?
WAMPUM 65
Europeans, for this metal must have been used for making the per- forations. There are a few exceptions, perhaps, where small cylin- drical shell beads have been perforated with other than iron or steel drills, but the drillings are invariably large in proportion to the size of the bead, and as a rule taper toward the center. In the case of discoidal beads the drilling is a simple matter : the perforations are made in the center of a disc, and according to the thickness of the shell may be made from either one or both sides, while a small angu- lar stone point is easily maintained in the shaft of a drill. Beads of this class have been found in quantities on prehistoric sites, so that it is reasonable to suppose that this wampum, or its equivalent under various names, was the kind the earliest explorers found in use among the Indians, rather than what is commonly known today as wampum.
The drilling of cylindrical beads, the typical wampum, examples of which are shown in the illustrations, could hardly have been done with a stone point, because the perforations are long and narrow, and a point of stone of sufficient length would be difficult to make, and if made, the least deviation from the line of drilling would break the drill, if not the bead. Copper implements of a suitable character have not been found in numbers sufficient to suggest their use for this pur- pose. The use of reeds or of like material in conjunction with sand and water would seem most improbable when we consider the pro- digious quantities of wampum that exist and the time required to drill a bead by such means.
For the purpose of examining the shape and general appearance of tubular drillings a series of excellent X-ray photographs have been prepared by Dr. Elsie Fox, of New York City, an expert in that line, who kindly volunteered her services toward solving this interesting problem.
PI. viii, a, illustrates a fragment of a wampum belt, and b is an X- ray photograph of the same specimen, showing the drillings of the beads. It may be seen that many of the perforations have been made from each end of the bead, showing clearly where the drill has not been held true and the meeting points have not come exactly together. Others have evidently been drilled from one end.
PI. ix, a, is a photograph of a portion of another belt, with an ac- companying X-ray print (b) showing a marked improvement in the drillings, which evidently were made from one end and are parallel with the sides of the beads. The general appearance of this work
66 BEADS AND BEADWORK
suggests that both the beads and the drill were held in such manner that there should be no deviation in the course of the drill. Appli- ances of this kind, however crude, may be classed under the head of machinery. The device for holding the bead, if only a cleft stick, is a form of vise or clamp, while braces to keep the drill-shaft running true are nothing more nor less than a lathe head in embryo. Taking for granted that such devices were used, we have truly machine-made beads.
Fig. 71 is an X-ray photograph of an unusually fine string of beads, in regard to both the diameter of the beads and the drilling. The perforations are true and of uniform size, as though one drill had
Fig. 71. — X-ray photograph of an Iroquois wampum necklace from Brantford, Ontario. (1/2673) Photograph by Dr. Elsie Fox.
been used to complete the work. There is no reason why the In- dians, with their well-known ingenuity, should not have contrived some mechanical means for drilling the cylindrical wampum so per- fectly, after they had been supplied with iron or steel, without sug- gestions from Europeans, who at an early date commenced the manu- facture of wampum when it became an accepted medium of exchange. An interesting account of the commercial manufacture of wampum is given by Barber and Howe,126 as follows :
Wampum, or Indian money, is to the present day made in this [Bergen] county, and sold to the Indian traders of the far west. It has been manu- factured, by the females in this region, from very early times for the In- dians ; and as every thing connected with this interesting race is destined,
26 Barber and Howe, Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey, p. 72, New York, 1840.
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
IMHIUIMH ! nillHii ! ! ! in:i \ llfft llllNllMMIIINPliiMM! > Hill
IIMIIWIHIHIIP WWM 11111I1M111111M lllllllllllllll|IIIIRIlllMIIIHIiHilNli««ni!1Hlll»llRitfi
IS5S5S
a, PART OF A WAMPUM BELT OF THE SENECA OF GRAND RIVER RESERVATION, ONTARIO. 6,
X-RAY PHOTOGRAPH OF THE SAME, SHOWING THE DRILLING OF THE BEADS. (10/4263)
(X-ray Photograph by Dr. Elsie Fox)
WAMPUM 67
at no distant period, to exist only in history, we annex a description of the manufacture.
The wampum is made from the thick and blue part of sea-clamshells. The process is simple, but requires a skill only attained by long practice. The intense hardness and brittleness of the material render it impossible to produce the article by machinery alone. It is done by wearing or grinding the shell. The first process is to split off the thin part with a light sharp hammer. Then it is clamped in the sawed crevice of a slender stick, held in both hands, and ground smooth on a grindstone, until formed into an eight-sided figure, of about an inch in length and nearly half an inch in diameter ; when it is ready for boring. The shell then is inserted into an- other piece of wood, sawed similarly to the above, but fastened firmly to a bench of the size of a common stand. One part of the wood projects over the bench, at the end of which hangs a weight, causing the sawed orifice to close firmly upon the shell inserted on its under side, and to hold it firmly, as in a vice, ready for drilling. The drill is made from an un- tempered handsaw. The operator grinds the drill to a proper shape, and tempers it in the flame of a candle. A rude ring, with a groove on its circumference, is put on it; around which the operator, (seated in front of the fastened shell,) curls the string of a common hand-bow. The boring commences, by nicely adjusting the point of the drill to the centre of the shell ; while the other end is braced against a steel plate, on the breast of the operator. About every other sweep of the bow, the drill is dexterously drawn out, cleaned of the shelly particles by the thumb and finger, above which drops of water from a vessel fall down and cool the drill ; which is still kept revolving, by the use of the bow with the other hand, the same as though it were in the shell. This operation of boring is the most diffi- cult of all, the peculiar motion of the drill rendering it hard for the breast; yet it is performed with a rapidity and grace interesting to witness. Pe- culiar care is observed, lest the shell burst from heat caused by friction. When bored half way, the wampum is reversed, and the same operation repeated. The next process is the finishing. A wire, about twelve inches long, is fastened at one end to a bench. Under and parallel to the wire is a grindstone, fluted on its circumference, hung a little out of the centre, so as to be turned by a treadle moved with the foot. The left hand grasps the end of the wire, on which are strung the wampum, and, as it were, wraps the beads around the fluted or hollow circumference of the grind- stone. While the grindstone is revolving, the beads are held down on to it, and turned round by a flat piece of wood held in the right hand, and by the grinding soon become round and smooth. They are then strung on hempen strings, about a foot in length. From five to ten strings are a day's work for a female. They are sold to the country merchants for twelve and a half cents a string, always command cash, and constitute the support of many poor and worthy families.
68
BEADS AND BEADWORK
John W. Campbell was born July 31, 1746, and early in life settled at Pascack where he established a wampum factory and for years con- ducted an extensive business, supplying the United States Indian agents and traders of the day with " Indian money." His descend- ants, until quite recently, continued its manufacture.
Seven strings of the Campbell wampum are illustrated in pi. x. The strings are as described in the foregoing citation, being about 12 inches long, while the beads are of lengths varying from about half an inch to seven-eighths of an inch, and of a uniform diameter of three-sixteenths of an inch. Only a small number of the beads, how- ever, are less than seven-eighths of an inch in length. These are much larger in every respect than those made commercially before the Campbell factory commenced operations. No beads of such size appear in any of the known wampum belts. It is not to be supposed that the Campbells were pioneers in the industry, for, as Beauchamp writes,27 " the Dutch had learned to make wampum by improved methods, having used it from the first, and the Iroquois bought large quantities."
There is no doubt that the Indians made quantities of wampum, as their demand for muxes (awls) and needles is noted in early records.
Many of these articles were given as part payment by the Colonists for Indian lands. To quote Roger Wil- liams, " Before ever they had awle blades from Europe, they made shift to bore this their, shell money with stones." 28
In the Indian deed for Huntington, Long Island, dated 1650, are mentioned " 30 muxes and 30 needles." Among the articles given for East Hampton, Long Island, in 1648, were one hun- dred muxes. The deed for Mastic Neck, Brookhaven, Long Island, in 1657, specifies, among other things, " forty needles and forty muxes." In the records of many other transactions muxes are mentioned, attesting to the fact that those implements were in great demand by the Indians.
Fig. 72. — W arapura made without steel tools : found at Lewiston, New York. Actual size. (8/8550)
27 Beauchamp, W. M., History of the New York Iroquois, Bull. 78, N. Y. State Mus., Albany, 1905.
28 Williams, Roger, op. cit, p. 130.
ORCHARD BEADS AND BEADWORK
REGULATION BUNCH OF WAMPUM PREPARED FOR TRADE BY WHITE MANUFACTURERS IN NEW JERSEY. (2/9813)
WAMPUM 69
With reference to the age of this particular form of wampum, there seems to be conclusive evidence that it was not made until after the arrival of Europeans. No doubt many of the kind shown in fig. 72 were in use by the natives before they came in contact with white men, but all that have been recovered are larger and coarser than those which were made with the aid of steel drills. Much of the coarser kind has been found on prehistoric sites, but never any of the smaller variety. An expression of opinion on this point was asked of three prominent archeologists who have made many field in- vestigations in the East. Their statements are herein quoted. Mr. Arthur C. Parker, Director of the Rochester Municipal Museum, states :
During the past twenty-two years I have examined numerous Indian village and burial sites of the several cultures in New York and northern Pennsylvania. I have given pre-colonial, otherwise pre-contact, sites con- siderable care in this area, recording the range of artifacts found upon each site examined.
I have found shell beads, shaped as spheroids, ovals, and disks in village-sites and graves in certain pre-contact Algonkian sites, and I have found the same type of beads in pre-contact Iroquoian sites and also long heavy cylindrical beads made from the columella of the Pyrula (Busycon), but I have never found the small cylindrical beads such as are found in wampum belts and strings in any of these early sites. Where small cy- lindrical beads have been found they are at least three times the diameter of the historic wampum bead and made of a different variety of shell.
Historic wampum, such as is known as ' belt wampum,' appears abun- dantly in sites of about 1650. Sites of twenty to fifty years earlier have it only rarely or sparingly, but by the middle of the 17th century it ap- pears in great quantities, many graves yielding from a pint to four quarts of it. It continued in abundance among the historic Iroquois until about 1800. Its use by them after this period was confined mostly to strings and belts used in council and ceremony. Occasionally a belt or string was buried with the dead, but glass beads gradually drove out wampum as a clothing decoration and its growing scarcity prevented its use as a burial tribute.
Mr. M. R. Harrington, formerly of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, now Director of Research in the South- west Museum, Los Angeles, has done extensive archeological work in the region of New York. He writes :
As to wampum, I think that cylindrical shell beads, mostly white and made from Fulgur cones, and slightly larger than standard wampum, were
70 BEADS AND BEADWORK
made in fair quantity before the coming of the whites ; but that the great development of what we call wampum began in early Colonial days, after the Indians secured steel drills. On Long Island, at Dosoris, near Glen Cove, to be exact, I found Fulgur cones (columellas) that had been ground into slender cylinders and marked into lengths suitable for wampum, but no finished beads. On Tennessee river I found shell beads like coarse white wampum, some of them on sites where no white man's products ap- peared, and others, very similar, on sites where a few trade articles were seen. The Long Island site mentioned above showed nothing of European origin.
Quoting the late Alanson Skinner, also of the Museum of the American Indian :
I have never seen a single wampum bead from any prehistoric Iroquois site that I have visited in New York, Canada, or Pennsylvania. On the contrary, they are exceedingly abundant in the graves, and even on the surface, of the historic towns. On prehistoric Onondaga sites in Jefferson county, we found disc beads of dark steatite quite commonly, and more rarely, similar beads of shell, and I think, bone.
In addition to these statements we quote from Beauchamp,29 as follows :
I have mentioned the lack of wampum among the early New York Iro- quois, as proof that they had not reached the sea, but it was not abundant even on the coast in prehistoric times. On early Iroquois sites it is not found, nor anything resembling it.
These statements are presented to correct an impression which has prevailed, more or less, that the regulation belt wampum was made and used by the Indians in prehistoric times.
The uses of wampum have been described by Dr. Frank G. Speck in his memoir on The Functions of Wampum Among the Eastern Algonkian.30
Wampum-making Tools
A series of implements necessary for making wampum has been brought together for the Museum by Mr. Carl F. Schondorf, of Paterson, New Jersey, who for a number of years has been deeply interested in the subject and has succeeded not only in gathering the
29 Beauchamp, W. M., History of the New York Iroquois, Bull. 78, N. Y. State Mus., Albany, 1905.
30 Mem. Amer. Anthr. Asso., vol. vi, no. 1, 1919.
WAMPUM
71
actual tools but in recording some authentic information on the manu- facture of wampum from descendants of at least two of the families who made it for the Campbells, who in turn supplied Western traders with the beads. The tools were procured from descendants of Jane Ann Bell and Fowler Bross, both noted in their day for their ability in beadmaking.
According to these people the quahog, or hard-clam shell (Venus mercenaria), was used exclusively for the purple wampum. The shells were secured in quantities by the Campbells, who sold them to the beadmakers.
The tools, as shown in the illustration (fig. 73), consist of a short- handled double-bladed adz (a) used in connection with a short chisel-
Fig. 73. — Tools for making " Dutch " wampum.
like implement (b) for cutting the purple edge of the shells into pieces of required size, which afterward were roughly ground into octagonal shape on a grindstone. The implement for holding the fragment of shell (c) during this operation is made from a hickory stick about fourteen inches long, an inch wide, and three-quarters of an inch thick, tapering from the center to about a quarter of an inch thick at each end. A cleft was made across the middle of the stick, leaving enough of the wood to form a hinge for the two ends. The elasticity of hickory permitted the cleft to spread apart and to hold the fragment of shell to be shaped on the grindstone. This made a very practical instrument for the purpose. Bearing down on both ends of the stick closed the cleft so that the shell could not slip out of place (fig. 74). After the shell was shaped, the ends were ground square, held with the same implement (fig. 75).
Making the perforations was the next stage of manufacture. The
72
BEADS AND BEADWORK
Fig. 74. — Wampum making : Roughly shaping a piece of shell before drilling.
drills (fig. 73, d) were made from saw-files. One end was carefully drawn out to a point an inch or an inch and a half long, and provided
with a flat chisel -like cutting point. The op- posite end is rounded to fit into a breast-plate (e). The drill was re- volved with a bow (/) with the string wrapped around a common thread spool which was placed on the shaft of the drill near the rounded end.
According to the bead- makers, the preparation of the drill was an im- portant matter, as a poorly made instrument would split the shell while drilling or other- wise retard the production. The drawn-out point must be perfectly alined with the rest of the file forming the shaft, or spindle,' the cut- ting edge a trifle broader than the diameter of that part forming the drill- shaft, to allow a clear- ance for the revolution of the drill and the accu- mulating shell particles during the process. The temper of the. drill was finely adjusted in order that the cutting be sub- jected to as little inter- ruption as possible.
During the operation of perforating, water was constantly applied with the fingers to keep the drill-point from get-
Fig. 75. — Wampum making : Squaring the ends of the shell by grinding.
WAMPUM
73
ting hot and spoiling the temper. The points were frequently sharp- ened on a whetstone (fig. 73, g), and occasionally tempered. A candle was used to supply the heat, the flame being blown to the drill-point with a blowpipe (h) made from the stem of a clay pipe.
Fig. 76. — Wampum making : Perforating a roughly shaped bead.
While red-hot the point was quickly dipped into tallow, which gave it the requisite temper or hardness. During the drilling the piece of shell was held on a clamp (i) similar in form to that used to hold the shell while being roughly ground into shape, except that the cleft was cut nearer one end, rather than in the middle. The short end was screwed to the edge of a table or work-bench with the long end pro- jecting beyond the end of the table. A weight was attached to the end of the clamp with a string to close the cleft and thus hold the shell firmly (fig. 76). Generally the drilling was made from one direction, but an inexpert beadmaker might find it necessary to com- plete the perforation from the opposite end. After drilling a number of the beads, they were strung on a stiff wire, one end fastened to the work-bench or some other convenient place,; while the other was held SO' that the beads might be rounded and finished on a grindstone. The finished beads were assembled on strings about eleven inches
74 BEADS AND BEADWORK
long, containing about fifteen or twenty beads to a string, and were sold to the factory for about fifteen cents a string. White wampum, which was usually made from the columella of a conch, sold for about half that price. The methods employed for assembling the beads for their various uses are described on pages 66-68.
ODD FORMS AND MATERIALS
Seed Beads. — Besides animal and mineral substances used in the manufacture of beads, many kinds of seeds, especially those highly- colored varieties found in the tropics, were, and still are, perforated and strung for necklaces or attached to various objects for orna- mental purposes. Some of the Californian tribes used great quan- tities of juniper-seeds for necklaces and for fringes of their cere- monial dresses ; in addition they have ground the ends of pine-nuts so that there would be a lengthwise perforation. These have been used either alone or interspersed with the juniper-seeds. Similar seeds were used for necklaces by the Zuni of New Mexico from ancient times until a couple of generations ago.
From caves in the Ozark mountains a Museum expedition con- ducted by Mr. M. R. Harrington recovered some Chickasaw plum- stones (Primus chicasa) with their ends ground off evidently for the purpose of stringing. Also found were some very small white seeds, identified as those of false gromwell (Onosmodium subsetosum), which had been strung and were still on the original strings. A casual glance might give the impression that they were opaque white glass beads known to the trade in size as number 2/0. The end of these seeds have been ground off, rather than drilled, for the passage of a string.
A necklace made of lupine-seeds was found in a cave in Kane county, Utah, with another string of unidentified seeds ; and a similar string was found in Grand gulch, in the same state. The presence of this material in the caves is ample evidence that the prehistoric peo- ples, among other things, used seeds for beads.
A necklace composed of silverberries (Elceganus sp.) was collected from one of the Apache tribes in New Mexico. And from the Chiricahua Apache in Oklahoma, a necklace of short perforated sec- tions of a root considered by the Indians to be a potent medicine was obtained. Such specimens are by no means uncommon and many were regarded by the original owners as having efficacious medicinal properties.
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
FEATHERED BREAST-ORNAMENT DECORATED WITH SEEDS STRUNG AS BEADS AND SECTIONS OF BIRD-BONES. JIVARO INDIANS OF ECUADOR AND PERU. (13/7094)
ODD FORMS AND MATERIALS 75
The use of seeds as beads is well shown in pi. xi. The specimen here illustrated is one of a number collected from the Jivaro, one of the largest and most warlike tribes of South America whose territory includes many miles of unexplored country in the region of the rivers Upano- Santiago, Morona, and Pastaza in Ecuador and Peru. The object is a breast-ornament, worn by a man with other highly deco- rated objects on ceremonial occasions. It is made of palm-bark beaten into a soft cloth-like material of tan color. The ornamenta- tion represents a face. The eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, and eyebrows are of brilliant colored feathers, outlined with beads made of various seeds and sections of bird-bones. The uncovered parts of the bark cloth are colored with red paint to represent facial paintings, a cus- tomary practice among many tribes. The lower parts of the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the outer edge of the ornament, are fringed with threaded seeds. The ends of the fringe attached to the outer edge are further ornamented with half of a nut-shell and a colored feather. Between the eyes, at the apex of the nose, is the entire skin of a small bird, similar in appearance to the redwing blackbird of North Amer- ica. Several Jivaro ornaments of this character in the Museum col- lections are made on a poorly tanned skin instead of on bark cloth; but taken together they may be said to be the most striking, so far as color is concerned, of any of the Museum's specimens.
Basketry Beads. — From the Wapisiana Indians of British Guiana was obtained a unique string of beads, each bead, globular in form, being made of basketry (fig. 77, a) consisting of narrow strips of palm-leaf cleverly woven with a circular opening at each extremity and the ends of the weaving strips concealed. The beads are strung on a native spun cotton cord with alternating short sections of bird- bone. The basketry beads are from a half to three-quarters of an inch in diameter.
Wooden Beads. — A necklace made by the Macoa of Venezuela con- sists of rectangular wooden beads varying from three-eighths to seven-eighths of an inch in length and about three-sixteenths of an inch in the square (fig. 77, b) . Some are decorated with incised lines, others with notched corners.
Gum Beads. — About fifty beads made from a hard transparent gum, dark amber in color, were found in Clatsop county, Oregon. They are roughly made, rectangular in form, average about five- eighths of an inch wide by half an inch long and about three-six- teenths of an inch thick. The edges are irregularly faceted. Beads 7
76
BEADS AND BEADWORK
made of gum are not common, probably for the reason that such ma- terial is not durable.
Another necklace of gum or wax beads on the original string was obtained from natives in Santander, Colombia. The material has not been fully identified, but it is quite hard and tough, and in color is black and tan. While the material was soft, the two colors were twisted together in rather coarse bands, pro- ducing zebra-like stripes. The beads, or pendants, as their shape would de- note, are of an elongate pear shape from five- eighths to three-quarters of an inch long and about a quarter of an inch in maximum diam- eter, tapering to a point with a lateral perforation at the smaller end.
Earthzvare Beads. — Two rather remarkable pottery beads of tubular form were brought to the Museum from Lara, Venezuela (fig. 78). One is three-quarters of an inch long, the other half an inch, both three-
Fig. 77. -a, Necklace of basketry beads and sixteenths of an inch in
sections of bird-bone ; British Guiana, b, Neck- diameter. The clay of
lace of incised wooden beads; Venezuela. < . , - , •
(7/4936, 9/256) which they were made is
ODD FORMS AND MATERIALS
77
m
9
Fig. 78.— Tubular bead of pottery from Vene- zuela. Ac- tual size. (4/8755)
of very fine texture, and has been given a burnished surface. The ends are rounded, and embellished with an indented line ; the sides are ornamented with four rows of lengthwise punctate lines. These beads apparently were made on a round stem of some vegetal material, which was destroyed in the firing. The operation of firing produced a pleasing red-ochre color. Several other pottery beads of tubular form, also from Venezuela, are in the Museum collections. These, however, are without decoration ; they measure an inch and a half to an inch and three-quarters long, about five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, and are gray in color,.
Another odd form may be mentioned here. About one hundred and thirty imperforate objects which have been called beads were found at El Cayo and Wild Cane cay in British Honduras. They are made of pottery, are slightly flattened ovoid in shape, and vary from about half an inch to an inch and an eighth in length. Four of these specimens are illustrated in fig. 79. Some of them are grooved around the greater diameter, while others are notched at the ends. If these objects were used as beads they might have been effectively strung with a double string knotted between the beads. Their use as weights for weaving or as net-sinkers is extremely doubtful, as the material of which they are made is too light in weight for such purpose.
When one considers the incalcu- lable amount of pottery that has been made by Indians, it is remarkable that so few earthenware beads have been found. One reason which may ac- count for it is that much of the pottery- making clay was so coarse in texture that it would not afford a finished sur- face suitable for objects of a purely ornamental character. Some of the pottery of the Southwest, as well as of Mexico and Central America, is indeed of very fine, hard texture, capable of receiving a burnished surface. It would seem that beads of such material
• m
Fig. 79. — P o 1 1 e r y beads grooved for stringing. British Honduras. ((9/6411-6412)
78 BEADS AND BEADWORK
could have been produced with much less effort than must have been expended on the great numbers made of other materials. A few globular beads of pottery, rather crudely made, from a quarter to five-eighths of an inch in diameter, were brought from Yucatan, and others were found at Hawikuh, New Mexico. These have not re- ceived any form of decoration, have a rough surface, and are dull gray in color, consequently they cannot be classed as objects of espe- cial ornamental value.
Earthenware beads covered with gold have already been mentioned.
Beads of Dried Otter's Liver. — From the Winnebago the Museum has a string of yellow glass beads interspersed with small pieces of dried otter's liver which have been roughly shaped to resemble the beads in size. This was worn in the form of a necklace by a child as a charm against the ills common to childhood.
Native Manufacture of Glass Beads. — There are reports extant to the effect that some of the tribes of the upper Missouri made beads of glass obtained from traders or settlers. No examples of the work have at present been secured for the Museum's collection, but the ex- istence of a single specimen is reported among the Arikara, which is the only piece so far known. However, it is so highly prized that there is little possibility that they will ever part with it.
According to the description of the process of manufacture, and of the paucity of examples of the work, it is safe to assume that very few such beads were made. The heat necessary for fusing glass to make a satisfactory bead could hardly be obtained in the manner de- scribed by the informant who furnished the following account given by Lewis and Clark in 1805 : 31
Mr. Garrow a Frenchman who has lived many years with the Ricares & Mandans shewed us the process used by those Indians to make beads, the discovery of this art these nations are said to have derived from the Snake Indians who have been taken prisoners by the Ricaras. the art is kept a secret by the Indians among themselves and is yet known to but few of them, the Process is as follows. — Take glass of as many different colours as you think proper, then pound it as fine as possible, puting each colour in a seperate vessel, wash the pounded Glass in several waters throwing off the water at each washing, continue this opperation as long as the pounded glass stains or colours the water which is poured off and the residuum is then prepared for uce. you then provide an earthen pot of convenient size say of three gallons which will stand the fire; a platter
31 Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, vol. i, pp. 272-274, New York, 1904.
ODD FORMS AND MATERIALS 79
also of the same material sufficiently small to be admitted in the mouth of the pot or jar. the pot has a nitch in it's edge through which to watch the beads when in blast. You then provide some well seasoned clay with a proportion of sand sufficient to prevent it's becoming very hard when ex- posed to the heat, this clay must be tempered with water until it is about the consistency of common doe. of this clay you then prepare, a suffi- cient number of little sticks of the size you wish the hole through the bead, which you do by roling the clay on the palm of the hand with your finger, this done put those sticks of clay on the platter and expose them to red heat for a few minutes when you take them off and suffer them to cool, the pot is also heated to cles [cleanse] it perfectly of any filth it may contain, small balls of clay are also mad[e] of about an ounce weight which serve as a pedestal for a bead, these while soft ar destrib- uted over the face of the platter at su[c]h distance from each other as to prevent the beads from touching, some little wooden paddles are now provided from three to four inches in length sharpened or brought to a point at the extremity of the handle. With this paddle you place in the palm of the hand as much of the wet pounded glass as is necessary to make the bead of the size you wish it. it is then arranged with the paddle in an oblong from [form], laying one of those little stick of clay cross- wise over it; the pounded glass by means of the paddle is then roped in cilindrical form arround the stick of clay and gently roled by motion of the hand backwards an forwards untill you get it as regular and smooth as you conveniently can. if you wish to introduce any other colour you now purforate the surface of the bead with the pointed end of your little paddle and fill up the cavity with other pounded glass of the colour you wish forming the whole as regular as you can. a hole is now made in the center of the little pedestals of clay with the handle of your shovel sufficiently large to admit the end of the stick of clay arround which the bead is formed, the beads are then arranged perpendicularly on their pedestals and little distance above them supported by the little sticks of clay to which they are attatched in the manner before mentioned, thus arranged the platter is deposited on burning coals or hot embers and the pot reversed with the apparture in its edge turned towards covers the whole, dry wood pretty much doated [doughted] is then plased arron [around] the pot in sush manner as compleatly to cover it. [It] is then set on fire and the opperator must shortly after begin to watch his beads through the apparture of the pot le[s]t they should be distroyed by being over heated, he suffers the beads to acquire a deepred heat from which when it passes in a small degree to a pailer or whitish red, or he discovers that the beads begin to become pointed at their extremities he removes the fire from about the pot and suffers the whole to cool gradually, the pot is then removed and the beads taken out. the clay which fills the hollow of the beads is picked out with an awl or nedle. the bead is then fit for
80 BEADS AND BEADWORK
uce. the Indians are extreemly fond of the large beads formed by this process, they use them as pendants to their years, or hair and sometimes wear them about their necks.
According to the statement of Lewis and Clark the informant " shewed us the process," but there is no evidence that they obtained and preserved a specimen, which is to be regretted. There are a few weak points in the description of the method. For example, the pounded colored glass would hardly be expected to stain or color the water in which it was washed, and in the absence of any statement to the contrary, we assume that the pulverized glass was made into a paste with water and rolled into form. There is room for doubt whether the paste would retain its form after the water had been driven out by the heat. But such discrepancies may have been due to lack of care in recording the procedure.
Catlin 32 also mentions the manufacture of glass beads by the Mandan and their exclusive possession of the art. Matthews,33 however, says that the Arikara women also practised the art, and he thought that these peoples made " glazed earthen ornaments before the whites came among them."
Another reference to this art is given by Dr. George Bird Grinnell :
Long, long ago, we are told, the Cheyennes manufactured for them- selves what might be called beads, but perhaps were small charms made of some vitrified substance — perhaps of pulverized glass — after the white people were met. Such beads are said to have been made within two or three generations. Many of them were fashioned in the shape of a lizard; that is, a four-legged object with a long tail and a small head. The cere- mony connected with making such objects was secret, and he who wished to possess one was obliged to go to some person who himself had been taught the ceremony, and to ask that person to teach him how to make one. A payment was made for the service. It is believed that in old times, long before the whites came, these beads were made from the quartz sand found on ant-hills, and that this was melted in an earthen pot. The secret of making them now seems to be lost.
In later times they melted the glass, with which to make the beads, in the ladles used in melting lead for their bullets. These ornaments or charms were made in various shapes, often in the form of a lizard, as said, or flat on one side and round on the other. Sometimes they had a perforation through which a string might be passed; at other times merely
32 Catlin, George, North American Indians, vol. n, p. 261, London, 1844.
33 Matthews, Washington, Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa In- dians, pp. 22-23, Washington, 1877.
ODD FORMS AND MATERIALS
81
a constriction between two ends about which a string was tied. The mold was made of clay.
The first European beads possessed by the Cheyennes were white, coarse, and imperfect in finish, but were highly valued. Few of these are now in existence.34
Other Aberrant Objects. — Among the odd forms are a number of gold objects found in the region of Sinu river, Colombia, four of which are pictured in fig. 80. They are of cast gold, in the form
iwiWiiilllilP™ *"
J7
■OJ^iUmS'i
Fig.
-Bird-form gold objects from Colombia. (5/1971, 3961-62)
of birds, suggestive of the humming-bird. The perforations are through the head and lengthwise through the body. Some have a circular pendant of thin gold suspended near the extremity of the beak, and another has also a similar pendant attached to the tail. There is no positive reason for calling these objects beads ; the per- forations may have been made for some other purpose than the pas- sage of a string.
Three other objects of similar form and size from Colombia are provided with ferrule-like appurtenances on which the birds stand as though perched on a branch, except that under ordinary circum- stances a bird sits crosswise rather than lengthwise on a limb as in the case of these ornaments. The open end of the ferrules are at the
34 Grinnell, Cheyenne Indians, vol. i, p. 223, New Haven, 192*4.
82 BEADS AND BEADWORK
extremities of the birds' tails, where it would be possible to insert a small rod or staff. The bodies of the birds are imperforate. Sev- eral massive gold objects in the Museum collections are made in the same manner, with ferrules large enough to admit a staff an inch or more in diameter. These in all probability were used ceremonially. It is possible that the smaller objects were made for some such pur- pose, although those we have called beads are provided with perfora- tions which, from their size, would suggest the passage of a string rather than the insertion of a rod.
TRADE BEADS
Age and Distribution. — Early explorers in all parts of the world found beads of glass, porcelain, and metal so acceptable to the abo- rigines of the lands in which they traveled, that a flourishing industry was established in Venice for the manufacture of glass beads, in the early part of the 14th century, and probably before. Among these aboriginal peoples the Indians of America were no exception, for they at once recognized the value of beads as a medium through which to express their estheticism and soon developed an art which has no- where been surpassed.
The variety of beads most commonly used as gifts and for trade was known as seed-beads, a flattened globular form ranging in size from about a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch or more in diameter. The colors are of almost unlimited range. A preference prevailed, however, for bright red, blue, yellow, green, and opaque white. In- termediate shades were acceptable, but were used sparingly in com- parison with the others. Beads of clear, colorless glass, commonly known as crystal, and black beads, were also used. The seed-beads were used chiefly for covering surfaces with fanciful designs, rather than for stringing as necklaces. Larger varieties of many forms were introduced for which other uses were found. These consisted of spherical, ovoid, tubular, and various bizarre shapes and sizes ; in- deed they are in such great variety that only a representative selection can here be considered.
Manufacture. — A brief description of the manufacture of glass beads is given by Dillon 35 as follows :
The manufacture and export of beads have at all times formed the very backbone of the Venetian glass industry. We cannot trace this trade back
35 Dillon, Edward, Glass, London, 1907.
TRADE BEADS 83
further than the beginning of the 14th century — by means, that is, of defi- nite documentary evidence — but by that time a fleet of galleys was yearly dispatched on the one hand to the Black Sea, on the other to Flanders and the Thames ; beads forming an important element in the cargo.
The starting point in the manufacture of beads is a rod or cane of glass : according as this cane is hollow or solid, the manufacture is carried on by radically distinct methods.
In the case of the hollow cane or tube, we start from a " gathering " at the end of the blowing iron : this gathering is slightly inflated to form a hollow pear shaped vesicle, and a rod of iron is attached to the further ex- tremity. This rod is seized by a boy who runs with it at full speed so as to elongate the glass as much as possible before it has time to cool; the thin tube, thus formed, may, it is said, be as much as 150 feet in length. This tube, broken into sections of convenient length, are now sorted as to size by women and then are cut into shorter lengths forming bugles or tubular beads.
Spherical and barrel shaped beads are made from a solid rod of glass. The extremity of the rod is melted in a blow flame and a thread of the viscid glass is laid over a revolving iron bar. The motion of the bar draws the glass around it until the bead has assumed the desired dimen- sions. The size of the perforation conforms to the diameter of the iron bar. Numerous materials are used for coloring the glass before it is made into tubes or rods.
Varieties. — One kind of bead which found its way into America through early traders may be classed among the aristocrats of beads (pi. xn). It has sometimes been called the "star bead," but is known among manufacturers as the " chevron bead." Many speci- mens of this type have been found in graves as well as in possession of living Indians, but not by any means so abundantly as other kinds, perhaps because of the greater cost of manufacture, and correspond- ingly lesser use. The distribution of the star beads is by no means confined to North America, where they have ranged from Florida to Canada and from coast to coast, but they found their way into many widely separated parts of Europe and into northern Africa.36 Evi- dently they were distributed throughout parts of the Old World at an early period.
Among a few glass trade beads found during the excavation of the ruins at Hawikuh, New Mexico, by the Hendricks-Hodge expedition for the Museum, are two star beads, one of them differing slightly in form from those usually found in the United States and more
36 Haldeman, S. S., On a Polychrome Bead from Florida, Smithsonian Rep. for 1877, p. 302, Washington, 1878.
84 BEADS AND BEADWORK
nearly resembling some of the older kinds found in Europe. The larger one is spherical, a quarter of an inch in diameter, banded lengthwise with alternating lines of green, blue, and white. Around the perforations the typical star pattern in white, green, and red waves is emphasized by abrasion due to wearing on a string with other beads.37 The smaller specimen, though only an eighth of an inch in diameter, has all the markings of the typical star bead shown in our illustration. As we have seen, it was the common custom of the early Spaniards to take beads and other trinkets as a part of their expeditionary equipment as gifts to the natives, hence it is not un- likely that the first beads were introduced among the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona by Coronado in 1540, if not by Fray Marcos de Niza in 1539. Several other Spanish accounts of the 16th century mention the gift of beads and other trinkets to Indians.
A specimen of an unusual type of star bead was found at Point Albino, Ontario. It is globular in form; the outer surface is dark- blue, while the star pattern is produced by six alternating layers of white and green glass without the usual red band. According to Dillon 38 they belong to the hollow-tube class. His description of the structure of the bead is as follows :
The arrangement and succession of colors in the glass is in every case practically identical. The canes from which they were formed have been built up of three main concentric layers, externally a deep cobalt blue, then an opaque brick red, and in the centre a tube of pale green transparent glass ; these main layers are divided by thinner ones of opaque white glass, and the dividing surfaces have been worked into a series of chevrons or zigzag (these chevrons are in all cases, I think, twelve in number) so as to present a star-like pattern on a cross section. The only variations on this general type are as follows : the chevrons are in a few cases dragged laterally so as to resemble the teeth of a circular saw; the central tube of transparent glass is sometimes divided by a zigzag layer of opaque white, and, very rarely the external layer is green instead of blue. In shape and size, however, these chevron beads show wide divergences ; in length, they may vary from two and a half inches to as small as a third of an inch, and the diameter, though generally less, is in a few cases greater than the length. The extremities in some of the larger and presumably older speci- mens are facetted, that is to say, ground down to a pyramidal form. They
37 1 am informed by Mr. Hodge that these star beads formed a part of a necklace composed of almost every variety of beads used by the Zufii inhabitants of Hawikuh.
38 Dillon, op. cit.
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
Hfff
& "*
STAR OR CHEVRON BEADS FROM ONTARIO
TRADE BEADS 85
were made at Murano, near Venice, the local tradition affirms, from time without memory.
A brief description of one method employed in finishing globular glass beads is found in the following quotation from Sauzay : 39
The tubes of a diameter proportioned to that of the beads which are re- quired, are first cut into cylinders of a height equal to their diameter, and are then placed in a pear-shaped drum of beaten iron containing a mixture of plaster and plumbago or of charcoal dust mixed with clay. The drum being placed on a furnace, the workman gives it a continuous rotatory movement by means of an iron axle which passes through it, so that the tubes softened by the heat lose the salient parts of their extremities from the constant friction with each' other, and take a spherical form.
The office of the plaster and charcoal in the work is to prevent the tubes at the time of the softening of the glass, from adhering together.
A short account of the first glass-bead factory in America is given by Barber : 40
The first industrial enterprise established in the territory of the United States was a glass bottle factory, which was erected in the Virginian colony soon after 1607. The works stood about a mile distant from Jamestown. A second glass house was erected in 1622 for the manufac- ture of glass beads for trade with the Indians.
a
Nothing is known of the exact nature of these products nor of the ultimate suc- cess of the somewhat ambitious under- taking.
Three specimens of hand-made beads of an old type and of very crude work- manship were found on St. Eustatius island in the Lesser Antilles, where they were probably introduced by early Span- ish voyagers, possibly Columbus himself. These beads (fig. 81) are pentagonal and I are made of two shades of blue glass.
Among- the manv odd forms of im- _ M ^, , , . , , , . ' , , L 100A , Fig. 81.— Blue-glass beads
ported beads is one found about 1880 at from St Eustatius island,
Canadasaga, an old Seneca village-site West Indies. Actual size.
. (10/5201)
near Geneva, Ontario county, New York.
It is of blue glass, discoidal in shape, with a lateral perforation (fig.
39 Sauzay, A., Wonders of Glass-Making in all Ages, p. 205, New York, 1872.
40 Barber, Edwin Atlee, American Glassware, 1900.
86
BEADS AND BEADWORK
82). Designs in white glass have been fused on both sides. It has been said that in all probability such beads were made by Venetians for trade among the Moors and that the designs have reference to Moorish traditions. Few of these beads evidently found their way to the American Indians, and aside from the probability that their form and design pleased the natives' fancy, it is not likely that they were regarded as of any other value.
A number of glass beads made to imitate dried kernels of yellow corn (fig. 83) were found with a burial during the excavation of a Munsee cemetery near Montague, New Jersey, in 1914.41 There are varieties in shape and size just as one would expect to find in a handful of corn. No beads exactly like these have been found elsewhere, but a string of beads which may have been made to represent ker- nels of red corn has recently been collected from the Crow Indians of Montana. These, however, are not such a good imitation as the corn beads from the old Munsee cemetery.
The scarcity of such beads as those which imitate
Fig. 82.— Glass beads, probably made for Moorish trade. On- tario county, New York. Actual size. (10/4204)
Fig. 83.— Yellow glass beads made to represent grains of corn. New Jersey. Actual size. (3/7097)
yellow corn may be due to the fact that as each was separately made they did not prove profitable for trade purposes.
Mr. Louis Rosenberg, well known as a bead importer and manu- facturer of New York, expresses the opinion that these yellow corn- beads were made in Venice during an early period of the bead trade with this country, while the red beads " were made sixty or seventy- five years ago in Bohemia for export to India, Africa, and America. At the time they were made there was no natural color coral glass manufactured, so they were made in crystal and covered with coral lacquer. In later years they have been made of coral and other colored glass."
41 Heye, G. G., and Pepper, G. H., Exploration of a Munsee Cemetery near Montague, New Jersey, Contr. Mus. Amer. Ind., Heye Found., vol. 11, no. 1, 1915.
TRADE BEADS 87
Other beads of this general class were made to represent rasp- berries, although not so perfectly as those imitating corn. Another bead takes the form of a gooseberry. Both these examples are made of clear glass, without an attempt to imitate color. The gooseberry, however, has some white lines pressed in the glass, perhaps to indi- cate the ribs in the fruit.
A distinctive type of bead of Venetian origin, known to the trade as " Cornaline d'Aleppo," is found widely distributed throughout the North American continent. These were favorably received by the Indians through the Hudson's Bay Company's trading posts, and in regions covered by the Company became known as " Hudson's Bay beads." According to an official of the Company it was one of the earliest kinds of beads used in the Canadian trade. Independent traders, no doubt, created a demand for this variety of bead in their respective regions to the southward. It has also been found in sev- eral parts of the Old World.42 The Hudson's Bay Company's im- portations of recent years comprise seed-beads from Venice, metal and seed-beads from France, and agate beads from Bavaria.
In shape the early glass beads found with burials and at village- sites are short tubular and oblate spheroidal, and vary in length from about an eighth to a quarter of an inch. They are made in two dis- tinct colors of glass, one inside the other. The outer is always opaque red, closely resembling that commonly known as Indian red. The inner section, which is exposed at the ends, is transparent and has the appearance of being black, but by transmitted light it is usually greenish.
A more recent variety of the same general kind has yellow and white centers of opaque glass, and outside coverings of red trans- parent glass. These later beads are tubular, ovate, and spherical, and have a wide range of sizes. Some of the tubular and ovate beads are an inch or more in length, and some of the spherical ones exceed half an inch in diameter. These later beads seem to be confined to the Northwestern trade.
Trade Values. — Trade beads occurred in a wide variety of shapes, colors, and sizes, and in early days had definite values established by the Hudson's Bay Company in the North, but of these there are only a few meager records. Other traders no doubt had their standards of value, but information respecting them is negligible.
42 Haldeman, S. S., On a Polychrome Bead from Florida, Smithsonian Re- port for 1877, Washington, 1878.
88
BEADS AND BEADWORK
The standard of value recognized by the Hudson's Bay Company for general trade with the natives of their region was " one made beaver," equivalent to fifty cents, hence if an Indian desired a cer- tain article in the trader's store, its purchase price was stated in terms of a beaver-skin or skins. The term " made beaver " is applied to a skin which has been dried and made ready for shipment to a tannery through the trader.
• •
©•
Fig. 84. — Glass beads distributed by early traders in the West. Diameter of g, one-half inch.
An interesting list of comparative values given in an anonymous document of the middle of the 18th century 43 includes the following :
Beads valued, one pound as one beaver, kettles, one, as one and half beaver. Powder, one pound as one beaver. Tobacco, three quarters of a pound as one beaver.
The trade values for a small variety of beads, using the term " made beaver " as the standard, was obtained at Fort McPherson on Peel river in the Canadian Northwest (fig. 84). The two beads marked
43 A Short Statement of the Countries and Trade of North America Claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company, London, 1749.
0
J * i I
#v
61 C*
^
'3>
tilt
;k\!,r^a
TRADE BEADS 89
a, of the type known to manufacturers as " Cornaline d' Aleppo " (see page 87) and to traders of the North as " Hudson's Bay beads," have an exchange value of six beads for one made beaver. A trans- parent green glass bead (b) and one of opaque yellow glass (c) were of the same value. A light-blue bead (d) had a value of three for a skin, and three others (e-g) two for a skin. Bead / is transparent amber in color; e and g are blue transparent and blue opaque re- spectively. Specimen h, a large bead of opaque glass, pale-blue in color, was the most expensive in this group, as the trader exacted two skins.
These valuations would seem rather exorbitant, but the transpor- tation to many of the almost inaccessible trading-posts, both for the beads going in and the skins coming out, alone was a matter of con- sideration. The values noted are those of one trading-post only; others nearby may have had about the same value attached to other beads of the same types. Prices, however^ varied in different locali- ties. The smaller beads, known as seed-beads, are sold in " bunches " of five or six strings, each four to six inches long, according to the size and kind of beads, and having a weight of four or five bunches to the pound. The value of one bunch of seed-beads at Fort McPher- son is said to be one beaver. The value of beads outside of the fur- trade of the North is not so definitely established, so far as it is pos- sible to obtain information.
Mr. A. H. Verrill has given some information as to the value of seed-beads among the Indians of British Guiana, where a hammock is the standard of value. He states that a hammock will purchase enough beads to make a woman's apron (see fig. 99). A large apron might contain a pound of beads. A hammock would also purchase ten flasks of powder, a gun, or a girl.
Polychrome Glass Beads. — PI. xiii illustrates a selection of poly- chrome glass beads from a number brought together from various localities in the West. According to the Museum collections by far the greatest number of such beads have been used by the Crows of Montana. Many indeed have been used by these Indians as offer- ings to the spirits of their sacred bundles, hunting charms, and simi- lar objects. Several hundred were collected a few years ago in Morrow county, Oregon. Many of them, no doubt, had passed through the hands of nearby tribes of that locality, the Umatilla, Cayuse, and Wallawalla.
The Museum collections contain a few ornamented objects from
90 BEADS AND BEADWORK
the Blackfeet Indians, attached to which are some polychrome glass beads. A few have been procured from the Comanche, who may have acquired them through barter with tribes to the north. A string of about seventy beads was collected from a Sioux, which in all prob- ability were obtained by barter with tribes to the north and west, rather than through a local trader. Beads of this class, all of Ve- netian make, have not had such wide distribution as the seed-beads, probably on account of their greater cost. They are found sparingly east of Montana. In addition to the beads shown in the illustration, which are good examples of their class, there are many others of the same type but with varying ornamentation, too numerous indeed to reproduce. Such beads were not made in a factory according to set designs, but were fashioned by families in their homes, which in a measure accounts for the great range in shape and in decorative patterns.
Funnel Beads. — Fig. 85 represents a unique form of glass bead of Venetian origin known as the " funnel bead," which is said to have been made in early days for Spanish trade in America. The term " funnel " has to do only with the outer shape. They are of two
Fig. 85. — Glass " funnel bead " from Fig. 86. — Bead made of twisted
Ontario county, New York. Actual spun glass. Tlingit. Actual size, size. (13/6454) (13/8398)
kinds of glass. The upper part of the specimen illustrated is of two shades of transparent amber color, twisted spirally into shape; the lower portion is of translucent white glass. The perforation is a small parallel opening from end to end. These beads were of several colors. Our specimens are about three-quarters of an inch long. According to Mr. Rosenberg, an authority on the subject, they were not satisfactory from the standpoint of durability. The upper part, for some reason, did not fuse very solidly either in the spiral twist- ing or to the white glass at the base, hence the beads were easily frac- tured. Perhaps for this reason they did not become popular. The only specimens of this type, so far as we know, were found in On- tario county, New York — a long way from the territory traversed by early Spanish explorers.
WOVEN BEADWORK 91
In early days many long tubular beads were distributed through- out the country ; these are in a variety of colors and sizes, and all are of opaque glass. Some of those in the Museum collection, found with burials in Cayuga county, New York, are red, evidently made to imitate the catlinite which had been used for beadmaking. Some of these beads are nearly four inches long and an eighth of an inch in diameter. Others, of blue glass and having a diameter of an eighth to a quarter of an inch, were found in Peru. Still others, of white glass, are attributed to Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico, but it is obvious that they are not from the ancient ruins of that name. These beads are not very numerous in comparison with other varieties.
Sinew-like Beads. — A necklace obtained from the Tlingit of south- ern Alaska includes a number of beads of unusual character. Al- though appearing as if made from a spirally wrapped cord of closely twisted sinew (fig. 86), they are formed of spun glass twisted into a cord and wrapped around an inner core of similar material. The cord contains glass of two colors — a single thread of pale ruby and several threads with a suggestion of yellowish brown in the twisting. The combination produces a striking resemblance to sinew. These beads were probably made at an early date in Venice, but for some reason did not attain popularity among the Indians.
WOVEN BEADWORK
Long-standing knowledge of the principle of weaving possessed by aboriginal Americans may in a great measure be attributed to the de- velopment of the many intricate methods employed in the use of beads, other than by sewing them to a surface or stringing them as necklaces. Some of the most elaborate examples of beadwork have been produced in a woven technique of one form or another. The accuracy of the mechanical part of the work, together with the artistic designs and choice of colors, is unsurpassed. In the following de- scription of the weaving techniques, the manipulation of threads and beads has been traced by examination and analysis, in some instances by taking the work apart and rebuilding it, or by selecting a thread and following it through its sometimes baffling course. The use of beads about half an inch in diameter, with a correspondingly large string, in reproducing an intricate weave, was very helpful in solving a problem and in making the diagrams. Unfortunately, however, I have had no personal opportunity to observe the work in process by native beadworkers, and as the data on the subject have been sadly
92
BEADS AND BEADWORK
neglected in the past, the material presented will lack much of inter- est respecting methods in general.
Square Weave Under this heading is included that class of beadwork in which the warp and weft elements cross one another at right angles, as is understood in the ordinary method employed in weaving fabrics.
By their ingenuity the American Indians devised many ways of manipulating the threads and various kinds of looms or supports for the warp elements while the weaving progressed. With the introduc- tion of a tastefully selected assortment of colored beads, an almost endless variety of designs was produced. A simple form of loom from the Tahltan of British Columbia, with a belt partly woven, is illustrated in pi. xiv. The warp and weft elements are both made of threads of sinew. The warp-strands are threaded through a strip of leather, about a bead's width apart; the leather strip is reenforced with a short stick to keep it flat. The opposite ends of the warp are threaded through another strip of leather, the same width apart as before. This arrangement keeps the warp-strands parallel, and as the last-mentioned strip of leather is stiff, there is little or no danger of buckling, and reenforcement was evidently not considered neces- sary.
This practically constitutes what is known as a two-bar loom : that is, a bar at each end to keep the warp taut and spaced at regular in- tervals. In operation a leather thong or cord is tied to the reenforced end, which in turn is fastened to something rigid, such as a house timber or a stake driven into the ground. At the opposite end the
warp-strands which pro- trude through the rawhide strip are gathered and tied with a strip of leather or cord long enough to fasten to the weaver's belt, or perhaps to go round the waist of the weaver, who, by leaning back, exerted the proper tension on the warp-strands for their convenient manipulation. Another way of stretching such a loom has been recorded in which the weaver, in a sitting posture, attached one end to her waist while the
Fig. 87. — Technique of the square weave showing the use of a doubled thread for the weft. Tahltan. (1/992)
ORCHARD — BEADS AND BEADWORK
TAHLTAN LOOM WITH UNFINISHED WEAVING. (1/992)
WOVEN BEADWORK
93
other was looped over her foot in such a position that the tension could be regulated to meet all requirements.
Fig. 87 shows how the weft and the beads are laid across the warp. A double thread of sinew is used for the weft, which has been turned over the first warp-strand at the left of the drawing. A bead is threaded on the two strands, which are then divided and one passed over and one under the next warp element. The two weft-strands are again passed through a bead, divided, and, as before, passed one over and one under the warp. These movements are continued across the width of the weave, where a turn is made and the op- eration is repeated in the opposite direction. Where the turn is made the weft-threads are crossed to make the last bead secure, as shown at the right of the drawing. As the work proceeds a design is woven by inserting beads of dif- ferent colors at definite intervals.
Another example of the same technique, made on fiber threads by the Astakiwi of Modoc county, California, is shown in the breast- ornament illustrated in fig. 88. The edges, however, show a differ- ent treatment : a bead has been added where the weft element turns to cross the weave (fig. 89). This places the bead with its per- foration in a vertical position, while the perforations of the beads in the body of the weave are hori- zontal. Two straps for suspending the breast-ornament from the neck have been provided by tapering the weave on each edge and re-
Fig. 88. — Breast-ornament of wo- ven beadwork from the Astakiwi band of Achomawi in Modoc county, California. (10/9610)
94
BEADS AND BEADWORK
ducing the number of warp-strands in the middle. A width of about an inch in the middle has a finished edge, and the warp-strands are cut off at that point. On the outer edges of the straps the warp- strands (a) are disposed of one at a time, as the weave progresses, by catching them under the weft elements (b), and are then cut off. It may be noticed in the illustration (fig. 89) that the narrow straps lean toward the center of the weave, which has been accomplished by a gradual reduction of the number and length of the warp-strands in the manner that those on the outside edge were disposed of. This method of reducing or increasing the number of warp-strands in a square weave is unusual.
Another good Astakiwi example consists of a small circular basket, nine inches in diameter and two and three-quarters inches
deep (fig. 90) . It is of the usual Cali- fornian twine weave, and bears a de- sign. The outer side has been cov- ered with beads, woven to fit the curve of the basket. The technique is the same as that used in the square weave; that is, in the manner of crossing the threads, with the exception that the warp-strands are fas- tened directly in the center of the bottom of the bas- ket, whence they radi- ate. The beads are ap- plied spirally on a double thread, one pass- ing under a warp, the other over. As the circle of bead- work increases, extra warp-strands become necessary and are tied to the
Fig. 89.— Detail of square weave showing the weft or crossing method of reducing the number of warp-strands. strings on which Astakiwi of Modoc county, California. (10/9610) ,- b« «
the beads are
threaded. Most of the knots are concealed beneath the beadwork;
WOVEN BEADWORK
95
a few, however, show above. The weaving is attached to the basket on the bottom at the point of radiation of the warp above referred to, and at the rim along the last row of the spiral weave ; otherwise it is clear of the basket. The edge, both inside and out, is covered with looped strings of beads, about half an inch in width. Although bead-
Fig. 90,
-Basket covered with beadwork, woven spirally. Astakiwi of Modoc county, California. (10/9603)
work on basketry in California is common, this method is unique, and is another example of Indian ingenuity. The usual method employed in beading basketry will be described later.
Another adaptation of the square weave is shown in a child's girdle from the Patamona of the headwaters of the Mazaruni river, British
96
BEADS AND BEADWORK
Guiana. The beads are woven around a core of threads ; the warp- strands are lengthwise of the girdle ; the double weft-strand carrying the beads winds around the core spirally with two beads between each
pair of warp-strands. The core and the warp ends are twisted together for the strings.
PI. xv illustrates a por- tion of a wrapping for a baby-carrier made by the Mono of Inyo county, Cali- fornia. Fashioned of red and black woolen yarn, it is fourteen and a half feet long and an inch and three- quarters wide. This is an unusual specimen of weav- ing, in that the beadwork is the only bonding element in the fabric. The tech- nique is that described as the square weave with a double thread to carry the beads. A line of beads is laid across the width, with one thread above and the other below the strands of woolen yarn which form the warp, a bead between each two strands. Before another line is woven en- tirely across, two short rows with only four beads in each are woven in, one above the other. The re- maining warp-strands are left uncovered. Then an- other line
Fig. 91. — Finely woven shoulder-bag of the Chippewa. (13/7035)
is woven com- pletely across, when two more short rows are inserted as before, but on the opposite edge. This order of placing one long row and two
ORCHARD— BEADS AND BEADWORK
WOVEN WRAPPING FOR A BABY-CARRIER. MONO OF INYO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
(11/8748)
WOVEN BEADWORK
97
short ones is continued throughout the weave, so that the beads stand out on a dark background, making a kind of fret pattern. The back- ground is composed of the uncovered warp elements. Despite the fact that so much of the warp is not covered or bonded in any way, the weave is firmer than might be supposed.
Another example of fine beadwork is illustrated in fig. 91, a Chip- pewa bag with a beaded shoulder-strap made of heavy red flannel edged with black braid. The central panel of the bag is of woven bead- work, as are the fringe- like appendages along the lower edge. The technique of this weave is shown in fig. 92, where a single thread has been passed through the line of beads above the warp and returned through the same beads from the opposite direc- tion and under the warp.
Fig. 92. — Technique of the square weave showing the use of a single thread passed through the beads from each direction.
This panel is woven separately from the
bag, and afterward sewn to the cloth along the edges of the weave.
The design of the panel is geometrical, and the shoulder-strap has
received the same treat- ment. The panel is bor- dered along the top and sides with fine-line bead- work, the sides in a net- like design, the top row of the same motive but somewhat elaborated. The coloring of the panel of the bag is very soft and is composed of fine beads, while the shoulder- strap coloring is strong
and of coarser beads, evidently not originally intended for the bag,
and more than likely not made by the same person.
In this technique the warp-strands are stretched between two bars,
Fig. 93. — Detail of a beaded panel inserted in the fringe of an Osage pipe-bag. (2/3240)
98 BEADS AND BEADWORK
one attached to a rigid post set in the ground or to a house-post, the other fastened by means of a cord to the weaver's belt. Another method employed is a fixed stretcher in the form of a frame on which the two bars are on opposing sides : in other words, a two-bar loom.
A pipe-bag of the Osage bears a rather unusual form of decoration. In addition to the ornamentation on the body of the bag, a panel of beading is inserted on the fringe, which is of the square-weave type. The warp-strands are supplied by strands of the leather fringe. The beads are attached by the usual method of passing two threads through a bead, one thread going over and the other under the leather strip forming the warp (fig. 93). This panel is about four by four and a half inches. A design is produced by the use of beads of contrast- ing colors.
A specimen of similar technique was obtained from the Cheyenne.
The Heddle. — Varieties of the square weave have been produced by the Menomini, Sauk and Fox, Chippewa, Winnebago, Micmac, and nearby tribes with the aid of a heddle (fig. 94), a wooden contrivance usually rather elaborately made and decorated. It is provided with a number of equally spaced bars. One series of the warp-strands passes between the bars, another through perforations or " eyes of the heddle " in the center of the bars. These threads are in a fixed position, while those passing between the bars are free to slide up or down. When the warp is taut, one series is above the other, that is, there is a space or " shed M between the two series. In textile weav- ing the shed is provided for the passage of the shuttle carrying the weft or crossing thread. A vertical movement of the heddle changes the position of the threads, thus if those threads which are passing through the eyes are above, by lowering the heddle they are carried down and become the lower series, while those having freedom of movement in the spaces are above.
Following each movement of the heddle the shuttle is thrown across the weave, laying the weft between the warp-strands in the shed. If one can visualize these movements it will be seen that the fixed threads, or those passing through the eyes of the heddle, first cross over a weft, and at the next movement cross under, while the free threads first cross under and then over. This is the process of a simple over-and-under weave. The same principle applies to either a hand or a power loom.
It cannot be said that the type of heddle illustrated (fig. 94) is an invention of the Indians. It was probably introduced by the Jesuits
WOVEN BEADWORK
99
or early French settlers. However, the contrivance found favor, and was used to some extent with good results. The Indian procedure is to thread the warp-strands of necessary length through the heddle. The ends where the beading is to be commenced are wrapped around
Fig. 94.— Wooden heddle of the Menomini. (8/4621)
and fastened to a small stick, spread to about the width desired for the width of the weave. The opposite ends of the warp are drawn taut and knotted, each thread having as nearly the same tension as possible. The knotted end is fastened to a support of some kind, perhaps a pole driven into the ground ; the opposite end is fastened to the beadworker's belt, so that, by a movement either toward or from the pole, the warp is kept at the proper tension. Beads are strung on the weft-strand and passed through the shed, alternating the position of the warp between each crossing of the weft first from one side, then the other. The beads are placed with two warp-strands between them (fig. 95). So far the process is simple: that is, if the beads are all of the same color, and no pattern is being woven.
The introduction of a design with no other guide than a mental pattern is a complicated and difficult operation. In this case the beads have to be counted and spaced on the weft according to color as each line is added. By this method some elaborate designs of
IOO
BEADS AND BEADWORK
excellent workmanship have been woven, but by no means do they
excel other methods of producing the square weave which have been
described.
The use of the heddle has been confined to a comparatively limited
area and to the tribes already mentioned.
Bow-loom. — An apron of woven beadwork constituting a woman's
dress is illustrated in fig. 96. This form of garment is common
among several tribes of northern South America and in some parts of the Amazon region. The method of weaving, and the details of the bow-loom used, are described from specimens and data col- lected in the Guianas. The loom consists of a bowed stick with a cross- piece secured at the ex- tremities of the bow. This serves the double purpose of insuring the permanent curve of the bow and of , ( , f providing a support for
threads and beads in weaving : two threads for the warp-strands during
the warp, one thread for the weft. the operation of weaving.
The looms vary in size according to the dimensions of the apron to be made. That illustrated in fig. 96 is about twenty-two inches wide be- tween the intersections of the cross-stick and the bow. No attempt seems to have been made to trim the sticks beyond cutting off the branches, hence it is evident that the loom is discarded when the weav- ing is completed. Cotton and other fibers are used for the warp and weft elements. It may be well to mention that an apron is woven upside down.
The weaving process is commenced by fastening four strings across the bow, about midway between the cross-stick and the base. These are long enough to form the tie-strings of the completed apron. Warp elements are woven into the four strings, which are twisted in pairs, with a warp-thread between each twist. As indicated in the drawing (fig. 97) the warp is looped along the upper edge; the loose
WOVEN BEADWORK
IOI
ends are taken care of at the lower or finishing edge of the apron. In the illustration the cords are spread apart to show their several
Fig. 96. — Apron loom and partly completed apron. Arakuna Indians, upper Essequibo river, British Guiana. (4/9922)
directions ; when drawn together tightly they form the upper selvage edge of the apron. In the next step the warp-strands are separated into groups of about six strands each and loosely tied to the cross-bar (see fig. 96).
Fig. 97. — Upper edge of a woman's apron showing the method of placing the warp-strands through two pairs of twisting strings. These strings would be inverted on the loom. (4/9922)
The manufacture of a bead apron is woman's work, and the loom is now ready to receive the beads. With her legs through the loop of
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the bow, either sitting on the ground or in some other convenient posi- tion (fig. 98), the woman doubles a thread around the first warp ele- ment at her right-hand side, then proceeds to thread beads on the doubled thread in number sufficient to complete the first row, which
Fig. 98. — Patamona woman weaving a bead apron on a bow-loom.
is usually of one color. Sometimes two rows are of one color. The first group of warp-strands is untied from the cross-bar, and each strand in its order is passed through the doubled string of beads, one warp element between two beads. The group of warp-strands are then tied in place and the next group treated in the same manner. This is an unusual movement in weaving, the common method being to cross the weft-thread under and over a permanently fixed warp. The reason the warp has been tied in groups to the cross-bar is that they are out of the way when not being used, and are easily untied as occasion demands. On the completion of a line across the apron, the loom is turned around so that the beading may always proceed from right to left. Should the next row of beads be selected for the starting of a design, the beads are strung as before, but are sorted in colors by count as they are to appear in the pattern, each row being so treated. The process of passing the warp element through the weft or beaded string is the same throughout the weaving of the apron. At the end of each line of beading two of the warp-strands are twisted once around so that they shall hold the weft in place as it is
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crowded down on to the row beneath. It will be noticed in the illus- tration that the width of the apron increases as the beading proceeds, necessitating the use of more warp-strands in proportion; these are added by tying an extra pair on the sides as needed.
Fig. 99.
-Apron of a Makusi woman of Ireng river, British Guiana. Width at bottom, 17 in. (7/4908)
The incomplete apron shown in fig. 96 has at each side an edging composed of two doubled warp-strands, each of which has been twisted over the weft, the usual treatment as before described for the extreme edge. These two elements are separated by two beads, pro- ducing an additional ornamentation to the finished apron in contrast to the plain single edging to the complete apron shown in fig. 99.
A supply of extra warp-strands is kept near at hand, usually tied in a bunch to one side of the bow. At the completion of the weave the ends of the warp-threads are beaded in the form of a fringe.
The tribes represented by the Museum collection of this type of beadwork are the Arakuna, Waika, Akawai, Patamona, Atorai, Wapi- shana, and Makusi. Further exploration may supply knowledge of a much wider distribution of this form of apron.
Variations of the Square Weave. — A pair of garters from the Winnebago shows a rather unusual variation of the square weave, in
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BEADS AND BEADWORK
which only a single thread is used for the weft and warp elements, except the edges, which are reenforced with a double thread. The
weft crosses over and under the warp (fig. 100), with a bead be- tween each crossing, the usual square-weave method, but does not pass through the same beads a second time when going in the opposite di- rection, as in the previ- ous single-thread weft technique described ; in- stead, it is carried on to the