Native American Beadwork

By the time Columbus discovered America, Native American were already using beads for decoration. Beads were made from shells, bones, claws stones and minerals. The Algonquin and Iroquois tribes of the eastern coast made beads from clams, conch, periwinkle and other seashells. These beads were used as a medium of exchange by the early Dutch and English colonists. They were called “wampum,” meaning strings of shell beads. The purple beads had twice the value of the white ones. The explorer, followed by the trader, missionary and settler, soon discovered that he had a very good trade item in glass beads brought from Europe. The early beads that were used were about 1/8″ in diameter, nearly twice as large as beads in the mid 1800’s. They were called pony beads and were quite irregular in shape

Hand Crafted Native American Bead Work

and size. The colors most commonly used were sky blue, white and black. Other less widely used colors were deep buff, light red, dark red, and dark blue. The small round seed beads, as they are called, are the most generally used for sewed beadwork. They come in a variety of colors. Those most commonly used by

Native Americans are red, orange, yellow, light blue, dark blue, green, lavender, and black.