The History of African Beads and Beadwork
Egypt was the first country to produce a large variety of beads from so many different materials. Their beads were not only used for necklaces, but were also attached to linen and papyrus backings to make belts, aprons, and sandals. Beadwork originated in Egypt around 2200 B.C. Egyptian beadwork was produced by a special technique that threaded single beads together, rather than using a bead loom. Beadwork bands and figures were the main products made by this method.
To understand the beads of Africa, it is crucial to appreciate the influence of geography on African societies. The ruler or chief encouraged the development of arts and crafts, both to express his power visually and to have offerings to give to the gods out of gratitude for his privileged position. Beaded objects also served to distinguish rulers from ordinary people.
Authentic African Bead Chair
used in tribal ceremonies
Africans wore beads to communicate cultural values in a symbolic language that expressed rank, religion, politics, and artistic attitudes. Cowrie shells were valued for their durability and their shape (symbolizing female fertility), also have an ancient history in Africa. Over ten thousand years ago, cowries were used as burial offerings. One of the earliest known African beads are disk-shaped forms made of ostrich eggshells recovered from Upper Paleolithic (10,000 B.C.) sites in Libya and slightly later Neolithic sites in the Sudan.
During the fifteenth century, stone beads were developed in the kingdom of Benin (known today as Nigeria) with the encouragement of Oba Eware the Great. Benin craftsmen became experts at carving stone beads coveted by the royal court. Beads were considered so important in old Benin that a member of the house of Iwebo (the keepers of the royal wardrobe) was sent by the oba to invest a worthy subject with beads. No titled chief was allowed to visit oba unless he wore his necklaces, and if he lost them, he could be punished by death. The beaded regalia of the oba became increasingly elaborate until, by the seventeenth century, entire costumes of coral beads, including skirts, shirts, and crowns became the official royal dress.
Genuine Yoruba Bead Crown
In Kenya, where locally made iron was plentiful, large faceted iron beads have been manufactured by the Turkana for generations.
European explorers and traders arriving in West Africa in the early fifteenth century noted an abundance of gold jewelry, including beaded necklaces and bracelets. Glass beads were bartered by Africans for incense, ivory, tortoiseshell, rhinoceros horn, palm and coconut oils, timer, pig iron, and gold. Between the 1500s and 1867, it’s estimated that fifteen million slaves were shipped from Africa to the Americas for the exchange of European glass beads.
Authentic African Trade Beads
African Beads Today
African beads are still treasured and used throughout the African continent. For instance, ostrich eggshell is still used for some beadmaking in East Africa, and large quantities of beads are made from this durable and accessible material in the Kalahari Desert. In addition, beautifully crafted gold beads made by the lost-wax casting technique are still worn in Ghana. The kingdom of Asante rose to power in the early eighteenth century. Because this area of West Africa is a gold-producing region, gold ornaments are plentiful in Asante art. Gold beads, call “soul money”, are used in rites of passage, such as children’s naming ceremonies, puberty rites, and funerals. Wealthy Asante accumulate gold ornaments, wearing them at ceremonies.
Ostrich Shell Beads from Kenya
Glass is another important raw material in African beadmaking. Beadmakers melt colored glass from bottles or other glass beads in a small woodburning clay furnace. They then use iron rods to form the molten glass into various shapes. Finally, the beadmakers decorate their beads with a distinctive color pattern by winding a thin trail of color melted glass around the bead while it is still hot. The fluid colors of the irregularly formed glass beads convey a sense of elegance.
Berber women of North Africa wear enormous amounts of colorful beads. Their beads also represent a marketable asset. When harvest or flocks are poor, the beads are sold for a profit. A bead’s value is based on weight, especially if it is made of silver. The way African bead materials are combined varies according to the tastes, hierarchies, traditions, and trade patterns of the region. For example, the Berber of North Africa wear necklaces made of large, variously shaped beads from amber, coral, amazonite, silver, and glass. Each bead is valued individually and carries a specific message. Golden amber protects against disease, while coral and silver beads are associated with ancient talismanic beliefs. The Samburu, on the other hand, prefer multiple strands of uniformly small glass seed beads. The color green represent the grass which sustains the cattle; blue to the sky and the high God; white for milk and other pure things; red for blood, especially that of cattle which is mixed with milk for food.
Rare African Amber Beads
Among the most spectacular beaded objects from Africa are the crowns of Yoruba kings in Nigeria. Yoruba rulers wear these crowns with veils on state occasions and during public functions. It consists of a cone-shaped basketry frame over which the artist stretched starched cotton. He formed faces from starched cotton, attached beaded figures of birds, and decorated the entire surface of the crown with beads of contracting colors. The faces on the crown represent ancestors, one of whom might be Oduduwa, the legendary found of the Yoruba. The gathering of the birds alludes to the spirits’ world and the king’s ability to mediate between the realms of the human beings and of the spirits.
Beads were, and still are, used in Africa to create objects representing spiritual values basic to the survival of the community. These objects play a major role in rituals insuring continuity of the group: birth, circumcision, marriage, warriorhood, kingship, and death.
Throughout Africa, artists continue the tradition of creating beautiful works of beaded art, and these artworks retain their prestige within the African communities. Beadworkers still create crowns for Yoruba kings and beaded regalia and clothing for Bamum and Kuba Kings. Artist from the Kuba Kingdom in Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly called Zaire) are well known for the complexity and elegance of their two-dimensional designs. Among their most spectacular creations are ceremonial clothing, chairs, and adorement for the Kuba King and high-ranking officials of the Kuba court. They decorate costumes and objects with distinctive patterns by alternating colorful beads and white cowrie shell with few empty spaces on the custom.
African beadwork is meant to be noticed. As Angela Fisher has written in Africa Adorned, beads say, “Look at me!”
References:
Encyclopedia of Artistic, Plain, and Fancy Needlework by Sophia Frances and Blanche Saward.
The History of Beads by Lois Sherr Dublin
Africa Adorned by Angela Fisher
Masterpieces of Glass by Robert J. Charleston
© Trade Beads of Africa, 2007.
Written by Victoria Saho
Site Last Updated: February 12, 2010