Ostrich Egg Shell Beads – an original African Trade Bead. 2014

               Ostrich Egg Shell Beads – an original African Trade Bead. 2014

Most people know what an African Trade Bead is – or at least they think they do.

Go to any bead show and you will usually find an African Trader from the Gambia, Ghana or any other West African country sitting at the back of his booth surrounded by tables piled high with strands of colorful glass beads strung with the ubiquitous raffia straw; or metal beads, or bone and horn beads. All the colors are represented, in stripes and dots, of all sizes from tiny seed beads to large agate stone beads carved by hand centuries ago.  Most traders would have you believe that most, if not all of his beads are old, if not ancient. Of the glass beads, almost none originate in Africa, but instead come from Europe and were traded in Africa by European traders for everything from ivory and skins to slaves. Within Europe, the beads were primarily made in Italy and Czechoslovakia. Some could be hundreds of years old, others made just last week.

But as you peruse the piles of beads on the tables spread before you, maybe you will spot a bundle of off white shell beads half buried in the pile. At first glance they don’t appear to be so exciting. Strung on the raffia straw like all the other beads, they look boring compared to all the vibrant colors of the glass beads from such exotic origins as Venice, Italy or Gablonz, Czechoslovakia, or Kiffa beads from Mauritania, or the yellow sand cast beads or the metal filigree beads cast in Nigeria, but when you pick them up for a closer look they appear to be heavy and quite unusual. The edges are rough and thick and primitive looking. Out of curiosity you ask the trader what they are, and he tells you they are very old, maybe 250 years old, from South Africa.  That is; If the trader knows. It is no guarantee he knows about all his beads. He might not be the buyer, just a seller.

Archeologists have also dug up ancient ostrich shell beads dating to 70,000 years old from Tanzania, which shows just how old this form of bead really is.

But back to the beads.

The bundle in your hand is heavy and looks and feels old. The shape is called heishi and is a circular disk center drilled from back to front. There are hundreds of these beads strung on a strand, and the bundle will have about 12 to 24 strands in it.

For the most part these beads are about 250 years old and do originate from Southern Africa. They were made by the San Bushman who are the last Stone Age tribe still in existence today living in Africa. Go back 250 years and we are talking about 1760. The Cape of Good Hope was a Dutch colony primarily settled by farmers who were stationed there to provide fresh food for the sailors of the Dutch East India ships sailing to the East Indies to supply Europe with spices. As the community grew and expanded outwards towards the hinterland of Africa the settlers came in contact with the San Bushman, whose presence ranged from present day Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. The Bushman didn’t have much the white man wanted, but one thing the Bushman made that could be used was the shell beads they wore and decorated on their skins and weapons.

Representation of a Busman drilling beads –Iziko Museum.

Fast-forward to today and most of the San Bushman are extinct. Diseases killed off most of them by the 1800’s and most of the rest by settlers who hunted them down as vermin for killing their cattle. The government of the day issued bounties for hunters who brought in dead Bushman. Most of the shell beads in the inventory of the African Traders today have been collected years ago and just get carried around to shows until one day there will be none left. Twenty years ago strands of these beads could be purchased for $3 a strand. Now these beads are selling from $48 to $54 a strand and are becoming scarce.

The bead starts off as an ostrich egg.

Broken ostrich egg shell.

After the Bushman has collected the egg, whether fresh to eat or by finding eggshell remains, the bead maker breaks the eggshell up into small pieces and nibbles around the edges with his teeth until it reaches the circular shape and size he wants.  That is correct- he chips them with his teeth! If they want a smoother edge, they rub them against a stone. Then by using his bow and arrow as a hand drill he drills a hole through the middle of the disk he just created.

Ostrich egg shell
beads - contemporary

 Voila! A bead is created. By stringing them together he can make a necklace; or by sewing them onto a skin he can embellish his clothing or weapon.

Bow and arrow used as drill, and beads used as fringe.

The first words out of every traders mouth is that these beads are old and that there are no new ones being made. That is not a true statement.

During a recent tour of South Africa, in April 2004, we stumbled across the last remaining settlement of the Khoisan Bushmen of South Africa. It was about ½ hour outside of Kimberly, Northern Cape, near the town of Barkley West, on the Wildebeest Kuil and Platfontein Farm, and visitors were welcomed at the newly constructed Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Tourist Centre by members of the !Xue and Khwe tribes, the last remaining community of San Bushmen in South Africa. They are about 4,000 strong. Originally this tribe came from Angola, and during the 1970’s when white South Africa was fighting the Cubans and the nationalist guerillas in Angola and northern South West Africa (Namibia) for independence from the Portugese they recruited this tribe to join the army as trackers (for which they are the best in the world). When South Africa pulled out of the conflict, they invited the tribe to leave with them or face the consequences of staying behind and facing the wrath of the Angolans. They were temporarily settled in Namibia but then forced to re-locate  and finally under Nelson Mandela’s presidency of South Africa were able to purchase land for themselves as an ancestral home. 

Their new home was the site of an ancient San settlement just outside of Kimberly in the Northern Cape Province, where ancient petroglyhs can still be seen carved and etched into the rocks today.

In the craft workshop and tourist gift shop Bushman artisans make ostrich egg shell beads for sale in the same way they made them centuries ago, only not strung on raffia. Instead they are sold loose in bags or in finished jewelry or on decorations. The raffia stringing is a West African trader technique. 

One interesting thing we noticed about the newly made beads is that the eggshells are thinner than the ones from 200 years ago – a testament to our changing environment and climate.

In a conversation I had with Dena Crain of Kenya, who read my article, she explained that a problem is occurring in East Africa where the local Turkana women are harvesting wild ostrich eggs for food and bead making for money to such an extent that wild ostriches are decreasing in population to such a degree that Kenyan officials are worried about their demise. She explains that what is needed is for someone to step up and create ostrich farms to produce enough eggs to supply these women with material to make beads without killing off the wild ostrich populations. 

So now, when you pick up that bundle of shell beads at the African Trader’s booth at the next bead show you find yourself at, maybe they won’t look so boring. Actually, they are very intriguing and come with quite a story. Buy a strand and add it to your collection. Better yet, buy two. One for your collection, and one to break up and use.

For more information on the Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Site and the !Xue and Khwe bushmen, visit www.museumsnc.co.za

Guy and J-ME own Wild Things Beads, a small family run import business specializing in beads, buttons and baskets. They also run bead tours to various parts of the world, such as Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic and Hong Kong. They can be reached by phone at (530) 743 1339 or on the web at www.wildthingsbeads.com. Their warehouse, which is situated deep in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California, is open by appointment.