Man has worn beads "since time began", in rituals and ceremonies, for beautification, for talismanic purposes or healing, to denote status, or as symbols of wealth.
Beads were also used as trade items. In Africa particularly, history is inextricably intertwined with beads.
The earliest African beads were made from shell, bone, horn, seeds, teeth, ivory, wood, or other organic materials. Cowries and conus shells have been used as adornment throughout Africa.
Large rectangular beads were cut from the arca clamshell and worn by West African tribes.
Ostrich eggshell beads were made in South Africa as well as by the Turkana people in northern Kenya. Beads of this sort are still to be found on the continent.
Red coral from the Mediterranean became popular with tribes with access to it, such as the Berbers of Morocco. Much rarer black coral was found along the Sudanese coast.
Amber (resin from an ancient fossilized tree) from the Baltic was first traded to Africa by Arab merchants in the 7th century. Copal, a much more recent resin, was indigenous to both Senegal and Zanzibar.
It is not known whether this was formed into beads before or after true amber made its appearance on the continent.
The oldest stone-bead industry in Africa was in Nigeria, dating to the first millennium B.C. The beads were made of red jasper. In Mali, beads have been cut from granite, green amazonite and agate for centuries.
In Ghana, beads are still being made from bauxite, an aluminium ore collected in Niger.
As for East Africa, carnelian shavings have been found in archaeological digs along our coastline, indicating a stone bead-making industry dating back to the 9th century A.D. The raw material, however, was probably imported from India.
It is not known when metal bead-manufacturing began in Africa.
There may have been large deposits of silver in Ethiopia, leading to a superb crafts industry there. Supplies were later supplemented by the importation of a large coin from Austria, known as the Maria Theresa thaler (dollar), after the empress who ruled Austria from 1740 to 1780.
Goldmines in the Land of Punt (now Somalia) supplied ancient Egyptian jewellers, and gold is still to be found in the Darfur Region. Gold was also used for bead-making in Ghana, Senegal and the Ivory Coast, and was often worn by rulers and other potentates.
Tin beads have been found in Nigeria dating to the first millennium B.C. By the 8th century, Nigerian metal smiths were making brass and bronze beads and ornaments using the "lost wax" method of casting. Iron beads have been made by the Turkana in north-western Kenya for many generations. Today, Borana tinsmiths in northern Kenya make small beads from recycled aluminium cooking pots.
The history of glass beads is difficult to trace. Some of the earliest came from Egypt, made of "faience" - the predecessor of modern glass.
Archaeologists have uncovered in excavations along the East African coast small monochromatic glass beads, now known to have come from southern India. These cover a period from the 12th century to approximately 1850.
It seems these beads were then mass produced on the island of Zanzibar, using long uncut glass "canes" from Tamil Nadu.
The first glass-bead manufacturing centre within Africa is thought to be Mapungubwe in South Africa. Beads found here date from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1200.
By the 16th century, glass-bead manufacturing centred in Bida (Nigeria), and also in south-eastern Ghana, as well as in the central Ashanti area. These beads were made in clay moulds, using finely-powdered glass made by recycling imported bottles and jars.
Meanwhile, in Europe, large-scale bead-making centres had evolved. The oldest was founded in Venice - possibly as far back as the 13th century.
Later, the industry spread to Germany, Holland and Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), and to a smaller extent, France.
Venice, Germany, Holland and Bohemia engaged in a highly lucrative trade with Africa, exchanging beads for such items as gold, ivory, palm oil, coconut oil and incense.
Beads later became a major exchange commodity in the slave trade, which lasted for 450 years. It is estimated that many millions of European glass beads were traded during this dark period of African history. When the railway was constructed in Zimbabwe in 1901/2, workers were paid in beads which became known as the traina bead. In 1910, blue Dutch glass beads were taken by witchdoctors to the top of the Matopo Hills as an offering to God, to whom they prayed for good relationships with Cecil Rhodes and British settlers.
Other beads were offered to chiefs by white explorers when seeking permission to travel through tribal territories.
Many trade beads became part of costume and adornment. Dark pink Venetian glass beads dating to 1830 found their way to the Samburu of northern Kenya, whilst blue annular beads are still worn by Borana elders during special ceremonies.
Dating beads is difficult, but Bead Museums and private collections yield useful information, and ship's logs give us data on cargoes of beads.
The picture today is a blending of old and new. Powdered glass beads are still produced in Ghana, using age-old methods, and brass beads are still being made in the Ivory Coast. Borana tinsmiths continue to make beads from cooking pots. Traditions are timeless in Africa.
In East Africa, most beads are imported ones. A large selection of glass and semi-precious stone beads comes from India, probably the world's largest bead producer.
Up until 1976, all small glass beads used in traditional tribal beadwork were imported from Italy. By 1976, the Italian bead-manufacturing industry had shrunk dramatically, and the Czech Republic now dominates the mass-produced glass bead scene. New bead-making industries have arisen. Kitengela Glass (on the outskirts of Nairobi National Park) make large glass beads in a wide range of colours.
Nairobi is full of beads made of horn and bone, the most sophisticated being produced by Maro Designs. Paper beads flood the markets in a wide variety of colour, shape and size.
Mankind still thirsts for beautification and adornment. Is it old or new? Is it Italian or Czech? Were these made in Ghana, or did the come from India? My advice is that if you like it, buy it. Remember, today's "new" is tomorrow's antique. One day, it will all be History!
Source: All Africa