Bead (item)

“ It is the mark you cut on the tree with your hatchet by which when you are on the trail you may tell your way back home again. The applicant for this brown bead honor may know three Indian ways of testing the eyesight, or how to make a totem, an Indian bed, an Indian tepee, or a bead band eight inches long. Any one of these achievements wins the wood-brown bead.
Then come the green honors. Here the artist in the young member of the society has a chance for development. If the girl chooses she may win this bead by work in clay [Pg 336] modeling, or in brass or silver work ”

“ Anne replied. “You see it incites the girls to work for honours when they see that their Guardians have worked and won them. The red beads show that the wearer has won health honours by keeping free from colds, headaches, etc., for a number of months, or by sleeping out of doors, or doing some sort of athletics—walking, swimming, rowing, and the like. The blue ones are for nature study, the black and gold for business, and so on. Each bead has a meaning for the girl—it tells a story—and the more she wins, the finer her record, of course.” ”

“ Jeanie's beads had all these properties, but some others besides, wonderful and lovely; and it is of those particularly that I wish to tell you. Each bead has inside of it some tiny thing, incased as if it had grown in the amber; and Jeanie is never tired of looking at, and wondering about, them. ”

“ The standard bead, and one of the most value, is a large one of white enamel, manufactured in Italy only, and is with difficulty procured in sufficient quantity to satisfy the demand, as beads are more prized than English cloth and blankets. ”

“ Many beautiful glass beads of Roman, or perhaps of British fabrication, have been found in Great Britain and Ireland. Upon some of these are bosses composed of white spirals, the body of the bead being blue, red, yellow, or some other brilliant color. These have been called “holy snake beads.” Probably most of them are merely ornamental productions and were not intended to represent serpent-stones. The curious test of the genuineness of an ovum anguinum mentioned by Pliny, namely, that even if set in gold, it would float up a stream against the current, indicates a very porous structure ”

“ His boys liked the beads, and he graciously allowed me to give them to them and that is what came of my endeavours to "trade." A certain stony red bead was high in favour and quite the fashion, but the smartest of the smart, those who really wish to shine in society,go in for keys. They have just entered the Iron Age—anything in iron is precious to them. ”

“ Fig. 48.—Rubbing of part of the decoration of a Tongan club in the Norwich Museum; one-third natural size.
What are known as “beads” have frequently the same origin; that is, they are reminiscences of fastenings. This is especially evident when the bead is decorated with a [87] twisted design, as occurs in the zonal decoration of a bronze vessel from a Swiss lake-dwelling. (Plate I., Fig. 5.) There is no reason to believe that lashing was actually employed on older forms of Assyrian combs, or prehistoric bone needles or bronze knives, nevertheless the patterns shown in Plate I., Figs. ”

“ The bead of this color is given for attainments in Nature Lore—knowledge of trees, flowers, ferns, grasses, mosses, birds, bees, butterflies, moths, stars. If the girl knows the planets and seven constellations and their stories, she may wear the blue bead. Also if she does a certain amount of work in a flower or vegetable garden of her own, raises a crop of something and cans, pickles or preserves her product, or if she carries on an experimental garden, planting, for instance, one plot with pedigreed and one with unpedigreed seeds and recording the results, she wins the blue bead. ”

“ The sharp if often sweet, and sometimes resounding and sonorous ring with which one polished bead falls after another, as you drop them through your fingers, is opposed to all passionate expression, and admits of no absolute continuity. ”

“ A bead, in his eyes, found in a certain place, would be of greater value than a nugget of gold. The bead might prove that glass was made centuries earlier than men thought, whereas the golden nugget might prove nothing at all. ”

“ In another is the tiniest fly,—his little wings outspread, and raised for flight. Again, she can show us a bee lodged in one bead that looks like solid honey, and a little bright-winged beetle in another. This one holds two slender pine-needles lying across each other, and here we see a single scale of a pine-cone; while yet another shows an atom of an acorn-cup, fit for a fairy's use. I wish you could see the beads, for I cannot tell you the half of their beauty. Now, where do you suppose they came from, and how did little Scotch Jeanie come into possession of such a treasure? ”

“ Catch the thread with the beads also in the knot. Make two pink strings this length and two yellow. Then make four strings, two pink and two yellow, that are not more than an inch and a half long. Fasten off the threads securely and the bag is complete.
Three bunches of pink beads and two bunches of yellow will make two purses as have just been described. The beads vary in price from six cents a bunch to twenty-five cents. Sometimes the more [290] expensive kind have only half the number of beads that the cheaper bunches have. Do not get too small a bead or the work will become very tedious. ”

“ Beads have been made from remote antiquity, and are found in early Egyptian tombs; variegated glass beads, found in the ground in certain parts of Africa, as Ashantiland, and highly prized by the natives as aggry-beads, are supposed to be of Egyptian or Phoenician origin. Beads of the more expensive materials are strung in necklaces and worn as articles of personal adornment, while the cheaper kinds are employed for the decoration of women’s dress. ”

“ With poorer people beads take the place of gems, and in particular the curious enamelled bead, which probably came from China and is still found in old deserted sites, mostly of Buddhistic origin, enjoys special repute. We have already met with the parturition bead, and in Kolhapur there is a much-valued Arabic stone which, when any woman is in labour, is washed and the water given to her to drink. ”

“ The beads are the most important item of the outfit. In many tribes the natives only wear strings of beads round their waists, and, if they are rich, also copper or brass rings, round their necks, or several round their wrists or ankles. White beads are very much prized by the cannibal tribes, among whom I have been; they string them in their hair and beards. One must have black beads—these are prized very much by non-cannibal tribes—also red, blue, yellow, green, and brown beads. Large beads of the size of our marbles, and even larger, are very much valued by some tribes. ”

“ The arrangement of the various parts of a necklace or string of pendants is found to be much alike the world over, consisting of a strand of beads, small toward the ends and increasing in size toward the middle, where a central bead or pendant of peculiar form or unusual size is placed.
The practices of modern barbarians in the employment of beads as ornaments are extremely varied. They are employed in dressing the hair, in head-dresses and plumes, and pendants to these; as pendants to the hair, ears, nose, and lips ”

“ A very pretty way of using beads also is to hem a skirt with them, simply tacking the hem in the desired depth, and then, with a long cotton and needle, make a stitch through to the right side, slip on a bead, pass the needle through to the wrong side, take a long stitch underneath, and come up on the right side for a bead again. ”

“ By adding to this store of beads the contents of two belts, one of which was nine inches in breadth, and so long that when placed upon the shoulders it reached to the ankles, we conclude that the greatest collection ever taken from a prehistoric mound could not compare for a moment with the treasure of this one historic chieftain.
A great deal of art is shown in the stringing and mounting of beads. The simplest form is a single strand, a twisted string of vegetable fiber, a strip of buckskin, or a bit of sinew being passed through the perforations. ”

“ Wonderful designs in beads or shell disks appear on coats, jackets, and carrying bags, while at neck, waist, shoulder, and at the bottom of sleeves and trousers are other figures in fine embroidery or applique. Strands of beads and seeds exhibiting a great variety of designs surround the necks of both men and women, while rings, armlets, leglets, and anklets of beads, plaited material or metal, are common. Combs are covered with pitch and inlaid with beads, or patterns are incised in the wood and filled with lime. Ear plugs exhibit beautiful delicate patterns inlaid with brass or silver. ”

“ The devotees may be seen muttering their beads as they walk the streets, and in the interval of conversation in company. The rosaries of persons of fortune and rank have the beads of diamonds, pearls, rubies and emeralds. Those of the humble are strung with berries, coral, or glass beads. ”

“ A single rare bead is sometimes worn on the wrist.
A woman who possesses a good stock of such beads will seldom be seen without some of them on her person. She will occasionally exchange a few for other varieties, and is generally eager to add to her collection; she may occasionally make a present of one or two to some highly esteemed friend or relative, and will generally assign them, but without handing them over, to various female relatives before her death.
Besides these valuable old beads there are in use among all the tribes many small glass beads of modern European manufacture. ”

“ But as we have had occasion to remark more than once, the object of foreign trade which is the most desired, are the common cheap, blue or white beads, of about fifty or seventy to the penny weight, which are strung on strands a fathom in length, and sold by the yard, or the length of both arms: of these blue beads, which are called tia commashuck, or chief beads, hold the first rank in their ideas of relative value: the most inferior kind, are esteemed beyond the finest wampum, and are temptations which can always seduce them to part with their most valuable effects. ”

“ III. THE BEADWORK. Soon after breakfast mother sometimes began her beadwork. On a bright, clear day, she pulled out the wooden pegs that pinned the skirt of our wigwam to the ground, and rolled the canvas part way up on its frame of slender poles. Then the cool morning breezes swept freely through our dwelling, now and then wafting the perfume of sweet grasses from newly burnt prairie.
Untying the long tasseled strings that bound a small brown buckskin bag, my mother spread upon a mat beside her bunches of colored beads, just as an artist arranges the paints upon his palette. ”

“ Before the white man came, the Indians used beads made of shell, stone, or bone. Nowadays they are fond of the cheap glass beads which they get from white traders. There are two kinds of beadwork now made. The first is the simpler. It is sewed work. Patterns of different colored beads are worked upon a foundation of cloth. Moccasins, leggings, and jackets are so decorated; sometimes the whole article may be covered with the bright beads. Almost every one has seen tobacco-pouches or baby-frames covered with such work. The other work is far more difficult. ”

“ BEADS.—The number of beads found in the mounds is truly surprising. They may be counted in some instances by hundreds and thousands,—each one the product of no inconsiderable amount of labor, unless our estimate of the means and facilities at the command of the makers is greatly underrated. The character of some of these beads, made of shell and enveloped in metal, has already been noticed. Others are composed of shell, worked into every variety of shape, round, oblong, and flattened ”

“ Had intercourse with Europeans been once fairly established, it were a reasonable presumption that we should have found at least a glass bead, a fragment of earthenware, or an instrument of some sort indicative of the fact, especially when we bear in mind that it would be in just such places, where the savages collected around their fires and seething-pots to cook and eat, that such objects might be expected to be broken or lost. ”

“ Should the red bead be more lively in its movements and come down lower on the finger than the black bead, he confidently predicts for the client the speedy accomplishment of his desire. On the other hand, should the black bead surpass the red in activity, the spells of the shaman employed by the intended victim are too strong, and the whole ceremony must be gone over again with an additional and larger quantity of cloth. ”

“ The white and the dark-colored beads were threaded and carefully arranged into patterns when belts or other woven pieces of ornament were made. The threads were either of vegetable fiber or of deer sinews, and long strings were sometimes made of the bark of the slippery-elm tree. Dark-colored parts of the shells from which the beads were made were called black, but they were really dark shades of purple. White beads meant peace. Dark beads were woven into the belt either in square or diamond patterns or in some more irregular shape. ”

“ They are used as saddle-cloths for the horses, dromedaries, and asses, of the natives, and as carpets to sit upon in their women’s apartments. They are often died blue or red, and find their way to the farthest parts of the west and south. No chief of a tribe, or head of a village, is without one of these skins. The sheep of the southern countries bear no wool.
Beads. I have already mentioned the use of beads in these countries, as a kind of currency. The most common are small wooden beads, made by the turners of Upper Egypt, which are bought up chiefly by the Bedouin and other peasants. ”