Beads

I bought a few strands of nice old beads on my last trip to South Africa. A few years ago it was easy to find these – but no longer.  Several of the bead shops I used to frequent have closed their doors or now only stock new shiny bright beads.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find the beads I prefer – beads with a history, with miles under their belts.  Beads which have traveled and been traded, handled and honored.

In a small tourist shop along the waterfront in Knysna I found a few dusty strands in a poorly lit corner.  The beads were still threaded on grass or dirty old string. They had reached the bottom tip of Africa.  I lifted down the single stand of  fine Venetian Feather beads and the green Kankamba beads from Nigeria. How I would love to be able to trace their route, their mode of transport. From Venice, from the Czech Republic. Through Africa. The decades between. 

Graham had brought me a gift of Feather beads years ago when he returned from working in Ghana.  He presented them with a satisfied smile of accomplishment, knowing how delighted I’d be with these  beautiful antique works of art which were made on the island of Murano in Venice especially for trade with West Africa from the early 1800s. Bead making was a highly prized and competitive industry.  So much so that glassmakers on Murano were forbidden, upon penalty of death, to divulge glassmaking secrets.  

Now here was another strand of deep red glass beads with the signature feather design in yellows and white.  These are wound glass beads, individually made – a labor intensive process, centuries old, of winding molten glass around a metallic rod. And then the skill and the practiced hand of adding combed designs in contrasting colors.

 It was the hand-made soaps in the shop window which had caught my eye,  I had not expected to find trade beads secreted in a corner.  Hanging as though in wait for me.

I reached also for the only strand of Nigerian Kankamba beads.  These slim glass heishi are old trade beads which were made in Czechoslovakia for trade in West Africa.  Most of them have a marbled appearance, but this strand  had beads of an almost translucent green, a wonderful green.  I had to have it.

And, I couldn’t help reaching for a couple of small Ethiopian silver crosses.  I had bought many of these in the open air markets in Nairobi  fifteen or more years ago and also in Addis Ababa when I went to Ethiopia to trek in the Simian Highlands with a mule.  But I am almost out of them now, and most of the crosses I’ve seen recently are roughly and recently hewn, lacking the fine grace and delicate appeal of the older crosses.  The crosses in the small shop in Knysna were a mix, I chose the best.

Later in my trip I found fine vintage silver and bronze African bicone beads. I love the way these work as spacers with dramatic beads like amber or bone. And, despite promising myself I would buy no more powdered glass beads from Ghana, I succumbed.  Like a last gasp, just before flying back to America, I bought an overpriced strand of large beads.  The glass is a swirl of clear and browns, like muddy water eddying into a clear stream. They are heavy and rough edged.  Each has been individually cast in a mould of clay.  They started out as bottles.  Possibly beer and coke.   The brown and the clear powered down and then mixed and melted.

It seemed a fitting choice as I left the new South Africa – the rainbow nation.  

  

When I unpack from my Africa trips I spread my purchases out on the dining-room table.  I pass them every time I go to the kitchen.  Between loads of laundry and catching up with emails and stocking the kitchen, I see my new beads and the possibilities grow within me. 

I have combined the feather beads with silver 

and with bronze, chunked with red "Amber" resin beads

I have had fun with the Kankamba green heishi 

  Arranged  them with dramatic "amber" beads from Kenya,

with  volcanic stone and silver

and with powdered glass in ocean and forest hues

I have yet to play with the big tawny glass beads.  But I can sense them calling.

And if any of these necklaces "call" to you,  click here to learn more

Comments: 

I loved this! Gorgeous writing as always.  I can just see the shop.   I have printed out the blog to tuck into my jewelry box, so I won't forget where the beads came from.  I have been wearing your exquisite necklace constantly since I got it, and have gotten all kinds of compliments!  L.