Closed Captions

Steve McCracken, a trade bead expert and silversmith, presents a comprehensive history of glass beads from ancient times through the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He discusses bead manufacturing techniques in Venice and China, identifies specific bead types traded with Native Americans, and explains why blue beads held particular spiritual and material value to Indigenous peoples during early contact.

Transcript

0:29 for well good afternoon everyone and welcome to the tent of mini voices T many voices is part of the core of Discovery 2 traveling Lewis and Clark exhibit this exhibit has been on the road since 2003 started at monello
0:51 Thomas Jefferson's home it's been traveling along the Lis and Clark Trail and we traveling through 2006 through the return journey and what we do is at each venue at each stop along the way is when we set up our tenam mini voices we bring in a wide variety of
1:14 presenters speakers to give us a little taste of the history and the culture of the L and Clark expedition and what we're going to hear about this afternoon is something that's often overlooked on the L and Clark expedition we're going to talk about the some of the importance of trade
1:37 beads we're going to hear from Steve McCracken about the whistling Hawks trade bead collection Steve mcra McCracken has been described as a modernday mountain man his hobbies and interests led to his business whistling Hawks in 1989 whistling Hawks is the trade name
2:00 given given to him by a black feet Onida Indian while on a Vision Quest Steve is an accomplished silver smith as well as a trade bead expert he's been working and researching uh working on and researching trade bead since 1989 he draws on many different references and research to formulate
2:23 dates names and history of old trade beads the word bead is derived from the Old English word Badu meaning prayer and Steve has requested that his collection is not to be photographed so we would certainly appreciate your cooperation and please give a warm tenam
2:48 many voices welcome to Steve McCracken in his whistling Hawks trade bead collection thank you I'm going to start out today with just a short introductory history to the beads and then uh proceed into the beads of
3:09 Lewis and Clark when we look here I we've put a list together and before Christ in 1454 uh wrong one in in 10,000 45 and to 720 glass beads were made in China because the reason I pointing that out as Le and Clark had
3:32 beads from China and from Venice and then in 300 to 400 uh ad the Roman Empire had a vast Market of uh industry in in the trade be error then in 585 benice founded by the Lum Lombards then the records indicate window glass
3:54 was ordered from Venice glass beads believed to have been made in Bohemia then the German Peddlers were prohibited from carrying more than 10 layers worth of glass rods for making glass beads uh the glass furnaces in Venice were ordered to be moved to the island of Morano and that was just off the city of
4:17 benis because they were afraid that if the factories started on fire that they would burn down the whole city then as we proceed there were strict rules enacted about taking information from outside Venice and they they enacted the death penalty was imposed in 1526 the first leak of glass secrets from Venice were went went to factories in
4:41 Paris the process of the wound lamp work beads was invented in benice in 1528 in 1731 the W bead process consumed 800 lb of oil daily in benice in 1740 the Bohemians export export set up permanent warehouses in All Imports and Inland cities of Europe and then in the
5:06 17 uh 64 and 46 they produced more than 2,228 th000 lbs of beads that was before the 1800s all this was done so as we start back in the history of beads the earliest beads would have been the fossilized
5:30 bone here this bone bead here is fossilized this is Ivory and shell these were some of the earliest beads known to man The Quill work which is well known in our areas by the Native American culture in that here's shells that were found on the Columbia River uh they were found with several other artifacts this
5:54 comb and and the bone beat or bone pick there is fossilized we talked about the Roman Empire there for a minute this here the reason I'm showing you this is because you see the blue glass here and the ibeads they the blue glass was really common and they they had it before Christ I
6:16 don't know where my speakers are okay uh these are Islamic and these were folded over but these were wound so even before Christ they knew how to make the wound beads this bead here here is from China it's a molded faceted bead this was done before Christ This is a Waring States type bead it's the I the I beads were
6:40 were made for to ward off evil looking at you so the people in all different cultures wore ibeads from before Christ and after Christ and uh so you're going to see these the ibeads in a lot of different collections here that were made in Venice and all over Europe along
7:03 along with being made in China and they had the ability to make these molded beads before Christ and I have that bead in my collection these beads here are from a Afghanistan that's jet that's coal and that's fiance those were all made in Europe too there the first beads that were being made were the Bubble Glass so you see the the gentleman here
7:26 he's making the bubble he's making a a large bubble and they would they would stretch that out and then make many bubble beads from that piece of glass here he's they took the rods home and they're making glass bubble beads right there at the kitchen table here's a bet the Bellows underneath the table this lady's over here she's measuring
7:49 the beads they use oil lamps like this plus there's their old measuring tool here's your bubble glass beads which are very rare and hard to find because they were so thin that they broke and uh we we just don't find many of them out in the world today the next beads that were made were the cane beads and your Russian faceted
8:13 beads the molded ones they were pulled through a mold and then they were hand faceted here's Bubble Glass that's faceted with the Russian faceted there's some that's not as you see here the the blue is a dominant color here's samples of Russian faceted beads in different colors they uh they Ed several different
8:37 things to make the the color of these beads green took copper and the blue took cobalt blue and the red beads uh they took gold to make as they mixed with the silica here's your deep cobalt blue that's most sought after this is the oldest strand of faceted beads I have as you can see here
8:59 they're not fasted very much this strand also White Russians and red this bead here was a noev cadz bead Columbus actually brought those with him when he came and they were used in the ships as bases so when Columbus and actually I have books that date back to
9:21 Captain Cook when Captain Cook came they brought beads with him too and they were in barrels that were used as Banes in the ships so as they at ate their food and and supplies they could move the barrels of beads around and balance the ship out so that's why they came with Columbus and and all the early
9:44 explorers the next bead that was made real common is the cane bead the seven layer Chevron then they made the sixth layer and then on the far right you see the four layer Chevron the reason they started they started out with the the seven layer was because that was what the venetians learned to make in the 1500s and that
10:07 was the hardest bead to make because each process they had to pull that cane of glass through a mold then on the six layers were easier to make and the four layers got made the process faster because as the years went on the demand for the beads was more and more here's some pictures of of them working in the old factories in Venice uh they work very close to the furnaces
10:31 the fires were large it took a lot of wood so they used the podach from the wood to to help make the beads so they didn't have to mine potash when they were making beads in Venice because they used wood in the furnaces I was telling you about the Bubble Glass and then they went on to making the cane re the way they made the cane as you can see on the far right the young man joining his Rod to the other
10:56 man with the bubble then they run in opposite directions and they with with the glass being hot and it would stretch up to sometimes up to 300 feet long then they would take it and the guy would break it into bundles 3 or 4T long and then they would take it back in the process and pull it through the mold cuz
11:18 to make the Chevron it has the 12 teeth on it right there to make that pattern they had to pull it through the mold each time and as you look at a Chevron when you look up close here The Collection you'll be able to see that each time when they pulled that bead through the mold before they broke those canes to make the individual beads the top one here is the Russian faceted
11:41 there's the noev cadz these are all cane beads and then some of these were tumbled and feted you'll see here this is a picture out of Germany they're actually being pedal and water was dripping down here in his bucket onto that stone he's fast hand fasting beads these are two other styles of the same thing but these were these were set at
12:05 and pedal with their feet the fastet the beads in the early days here's a closeup of the Russian facet and and the star pattern I'm talking about here the blue gleen glass is the rarest on the on the center of them and this one here actually has nine layers in it if you look close to it here's a red layer uh seven layer Chevron uh the red
12:29 core is is not common mostly it was Green Glass like this one here the other thing you can see here is they made mistakes even though they were Master artists what they did they still ended up with bubbles in the glass these are smaller uh collection there of uh smaller Chevrons and you can see the different patterns and then when they ground the sides down how you can
12:53 see the edge of the the different colors laying underneath here's this shows you real good we call this a a Chevron salami because they cut it at an angle so you can see each layer was pulled through the mold there and the last layer was not then it would have been this like this is a cane a piece of cane out of a
13:16 Venice Warehouse they found them in the corner they had uh bundles of canes in in warehouses over there in Venice and they broke them up into about 6 in long and uh shipped them out and sold them all over the world but the red Chevron is very rare and hard to come by so so is the green there's a green Chev seven
13:40 layer Chevron with the blue Center there's a large seven layer and other other examples there this one here is broken so you can see inside different patterns that it's not just done on the outside edge of the bead it's the full length of the bead and a lot of people think that these beads were painted on none of these beads are painted on they're all solid
14:04 glass and this one here you can see where there's a crease in that bead that bead was still hot when they laid a rod across it and put that crease in it in the 1500s and they went to the six layer of Chevron there's a good example of that and the four layer here this one was probably a five layer Chevron but the women like the red on the outside of the
14:27 bead so they would grind the beads down so the red would show so we call this a woman Chevron the Yellow Jacket five layer Chevron and the black Chevron there these are really rare to come by now and we get to the the beads of Lewis and Clark and that's that's a
14:49 real uh subject that a lot of people argue about because we have a hard time proving the exact history and science of the beads that they had with them and this list we put together here me and a few of my historical friends here you've got white WAM and the 5 lbs of glass beads mostly
15:12 small uh 20 lbs of red glass beads assorted 5 lbs of yellow or orange beads assorted two cards of beads three lbs of beads 73 Bunches of beads 8 and2 lbs of red beads this whole list mostly talks about different color of beads and when Lewis took off on the trip he knew that
15:35 the blue bead was the most valued and sought after bead for the Native Americans when he when he left before he left but yet he ordered this list of beads so that's why uh and these were actually Indian presence people are really misund understand that these were bought to be Indian presents they were
15:57 to be given to the Native Americans these would have been beads that would could have been with Louis and Clark we talked about orange and yellow your Reds the blues these are cane beads then uh we'll move on to some of these are wound beads in here that's the next process the wound bead they work real close to the furnace
16:21 right there and and grabbed the glass and pulled it out and wound it around a rod these beads right here Lewis requested in the letters of Donald Jackson's he requested the cheap blue beads from China paying less than 13d in Europe for them so Lewis actually requested these beads from China when you look into the documentation of the
16:46 letters of Lewis and Clark it shows that he asked for those beads from China and they're all wound this one here I'm showing you the wound process up close where you can see it the wound pattern in it those beads were all made one at a time they weren't made like the cane beads the wound beads were made one at a time here we're showing the
17:09 Bellows the the furnace right there in front of them the vent up above and guess who sitting around the table working at night do making the beads it's the women here we have a mixture of wound beads with uh a few cane beads in it so you can tell the P beads are cut off straight and then some of them they would take back and put dots in them
17:34 these yellow Arts here were wound they were made in the 1600s also these are I beads that we're referencing to there with uh the Roman Empire beads the the ibeads have lasted since the beginning of time here's a sample of more ibeads of rare colors that are hard to come by these were all made one at a time
17:57 also this Str here is the best strand I've ever had in 15 years and it has blue and pink dots on the white eyes that's the rarest strand I've had of the ibeads and then you have the red I bead and and these names are the original names that were brought with the beads when they were shipped over here because the Crow Nation down where I live in in
18:21 Montana they call the I beads Crow Beads no matter if they're black red or white or they call them Crow beads and that's that's not Soul uh the these are actually ibeads and I'll show you CR beads here as we proceed these are Medicine Man ibeads and here's your black ibeads this strand here I tell everyone this was a a beginning artist
18:45 because when when he started making the ibeads he wasn't sure if they were to be black or white and what color dots were supposed to be on them but when we really look at the master artwork that those people did in Europe they really had a fine art and they knew what they were doing we talked about making the cane beads and how they cut them the old way was to break them off like that on an
19:10 edge or they made like a paper cutting device and then we talk about the the the round beads and the pony beads they were hot pinched beads they were the the pony beads were the size of about an apple seed and that that that size is what LS and Clark would have had with them them but they're hot pinched beads so they would have been that Rod would have been hot and they would have
19:33 pinched them off and you'll see up close here that what I'm talking about when I the hot pinched beads here's a fine example of these are two wound beads that should have been done individually and they stuck together and then here's two other examples of where the beads had dirt in them and popped out these are good beads except they were made that way originally and that one there
19:58 to be formed here's a closeup of the cobalt blue bead that I feel is the chief bead even though there's other opinions out there that I'll talk about here and the sky blue Padre which is the most common and then they made white ones too also there in China you look here now and we can do it real nice with this machine because
20:21 these were made in Venice and they actually have bigger holes than the ones from China and they're more uniform there this strand here is bodmer blue they would not have had that with them because bodmer that blue didn't come out until he was out here painting In 1832 me we can go back I want see look at those there from China how they're
20:46 they're strung and then look at the Venetian ones that shows you a good example of the difference in the product then we talked about the way that they measured the beads was in fathoms these two strands I actually have laying down here on the table and and a fathom was 6 ft when Louis and Clark started out I'm sure that the the big guy on the on the trip he would give them six feet of
21:11 beads because they were giv them to him by the fathom but as we all know by the end of the trip his six his fathom of beads probably was getting a little short because the beads that he had the red ones and the yellow ones and all that color they didn't do him any good out there in on the west coast because they were already getting these blue beads here were coming down from Alaska through Canada and and the natives on
21:35 the west coast already had the cobalt blue beads and that's what they they actually sought were after here's the wound bead the doughnut here's uh the Doan are the large ones and these are Padres here there's your wound bead there then we talk about mock garnets and when they were made and who they were made by in the 1800
21:59 exactly 1800s the Bohemians started making molded beads and that's this one here is a fine example to show you how that glass was poured in there and it feathered out in the mold these are ducks blood and these are doans and the yellow wouldn't have been until after 1800s normally this strand here is Dutch
22:24 donuts and you can see how they're wound F they were wound fast the reason I kept this strand is because that's actually seaweed graded together so that strand actually came from Venice over here and was left on that you can see it down here also this is what happens to beads that are dug up is the soil eats at them and uh as we all
22:47 know in the archaeological world and that we don't dig up any areas uh they've they've dug up beads overseas and that and that's okay but not here in the United States because we don't dig up the graves in that actually some of these beads were traded in Africa the same exact beads that were traded here and in Africa they measured
23:10 their wealth by how many beads they had and instead of burying their beads with their dead they may have buried their beads because it was it was their wealth it was their livelihood and that's why we we get a lot of beads that were traded in the fur trade over here are being found in Africa and other other countries you
23:33 know and Alaska also they're still being traded in Alaska today these are common beads that would have been with Lewis and Clark the cobalt blue right there with that $7 million collection that's coming out of St Louis we're calling those the chief beads those would have been like gold to the Native Americans these white beads
23:58 right here the pony beads would have been like silver and the greatest thing in between the white bead and the blue bead was tobacco those were the three biggest things that they wanted on the from the the white people the Native Americans wanted the the blue beads and the white beads in tobacco Here's Your Greens that would have been common then there's your
24:22 greasy yellows like I say a lot of the yellows weren't made until after the 1800s so they could have had these these with them and you got white beads in there one of the biggest things about the old beads also is you'll see strands down here that are on string they that's they were on cotton string that's what they were shipped over on and some of them that are restrung on elant grass
24:45 some of them came out of Africa some of them actually came from Europe on grass then we get into the wound beads with the trail designs and these here were done one at a time these these are French cross and we call these Trail beads this is a bumblebee that's because it it represents the body of the Bumblebee this is a snake bead that's
25:10 found on many of the invoices and people are wondering what the snake bead is and it's actually that trail bead right there because if you put a bunch of those together it actually looks like a snake skin I've had a lot of historians come to me and and ask me what's the snake bead on those invoid es and they're looking back on the invoices from the 1800s forwards and that's what they're
25:33 looking looking at that's the bead they're looking for and I have a strand down here with some on it after the during the trail beads they made the feather designs here's your Red Feather which is very common these are not there's black feather beads and cobalt blue here's showing you the different
25:57 bead artists the earlier ones actually made finer lines this one here is a worn out bead and these show thicker lines on them they actually made the swirl bead at the same time they all date to the 1700s these are French Ambassador beads there's a lot of people like to come up with names for different beads and why did they name it that was it named after
26:21 a French Ambassador or not we have no written proof that that was true no documentation this one here when you hold the light up to it you can see that it's green on the inside instead of black like the other one here's another ibad Trail bead designed mixed together cobalt blue and these are fancy lampor
26:44 beads these we call Cal Lupe uh like the Hudson Bay white hearts and florals we kind of categorized several different beads in that same area because of the White Center and the yellow Center these are Trail beads and these are Dutch dels and it's because of the the blue and the white that it's called a Del but these were all done in Venice we
27:08 talk about skunk beads this is the true actual skunk bead and they were made cobalt blue and black and you can see the skunk tail right there these are actually called skunk tail beads in the beginning some of them were done fancier than others and some of them were plainer and you'll see examples of these down here
27:31 also the L and Clark bead that is a big controversy uh is story and friends of mine we we've tossed this around back and forth and Peter Francis who's gone now uh him and me had several emails back and forth and talked about the loose and Clark bead and just like all the beads that I've showed you before here they were made in the
27:53 1700s that LS and Clark bead was started being made in the 1740s and and were quit being made in the 1850s and if you look at this one here you can see there's mostly white on that band that goes around it that would be the earliest one and then as they went along they got better with their designs but that Twisted cane became a
28:16 candy cane in the Louis and Clark bead and that one there would have been closer to 1850s these are fancier Lewis and Clarks because they've got the different color in the in the white and that but we cannot prove there is documentation from Wyoming but I would not use that as documentation for the truth because all the archaeological digs and that we can't prove that LS and Clark had these
28:40 beads with them French Ambassador bead there it's a large bead with a nice design or French yeah this is French Ambassador the other one was arabes I made a mistake there uh these are kind of similar to the Le and art then here's your fancier ey beads elongated beads then we got the gold
29:04 Florine beads that's what these are called and these are similar to the Lewis and Clark but what this is is this is brass inlaid or sometimes copper and that was inlaid in the bead while it was hot and there's different sizes and shapes of those beads also then we talk about the raised florals these were done actually in the
29:27 1700s some with the white Hearts some not uh the earlier beads that I showed you with the trails on them they were raised little rods of raised glass like you see here and they were paddled into the bead these were not and that's why they're called raised floral beads fancy raised floral and these tend to be the more expensive
29:50 ones then we talked about the the molded beads these are the type of molds they would have used they're just like the gun mold the for molden bullets they could do four at a time or six at a time sometimes one at a time uh they were just as hard to make as as the wound beads and that because they still had to heat the glass to C certain temperature and pour it into the mold and plus have
30:14 a rod in the for the holes we talk about the mock garnets that they had with them the Bohemians started making these pressed beads in 1800s and right here would have been your mock garnet they're about the size of the pony beads There's real garnets there and that's the mock garnets here that I have enlarged there these were done one at a
30:38 time and when you look at them down here you'll actually see that the color of them is like a mock Garnet the red white heart though has several different colors so that shows you the variation in those also we talked about the Press beads these are corn barley corn beads these were pressed Lewis and Clark had them
30:59 with them and these are Crow beads there's more press beads these are podr uh you can see the the lines in them the molds these were pressed uh faceted beads these are actually cumba beads for the African trade you can see the seam though in those easier and you can see in that picture here's your melon beads that are
31:23 pressed here's your Manhattan Bead that bead has been said that that uh uh a gentleman bought Manhattan with $27 worth of beads that's a bead they're referring to but there's no truth to that story here's a pend piece there that is actually made out of slate and that
31:47 piece was found in North Dakota and that's the exact shape of the glass beads that the Mandan Indians were making when Lis and Clark wintered with them over over in North Dakota they were taking the blue beads and smashing them up and making them into a pendant just like that so that that dates back before the the glass beads ever got here this
32:11 is an iroy bag it has the Russian facet beads here with the pony beads here's some Hudson Bay crosses uh with pressed beads with the the signatures on these and some of these have the Hudson Bay symbol on them they were made in Canada they were in a museum there and they were sold out of the
32:33 museum uh some of these were done by Richard Chuck shank I actually have one on that was made by him here's your Hudson Bay Metals a big brooch that has uh several hearts cut out of it another brooch from that time period that would have been Indian gifts the the the big item that I told
32:57 you about between between the the the blue and the white beads is the tobacco and this this is a snuff box made out of buffalo horn and that dates back to the 1800s this pipe case here is out of wood the the man would have carried their pipes in a case like that so they wouldn't end up broken like this long one here uh this one actually dates
33:20 back to 1775 in Civil War time as the pipe got plugged up with uh uh our favorite nicotine they would break the end of the pipe off and make it smaller in the pubs they would start out with a long pipe like that and they would come in and and grab the pipe and use it over and over and they'd break it off as it filled up with
33:43 nicotine here's my list of references start out with the voyage to Paradise exploring in the wake of Captain Cook beads of Lewis and or before Lewis and Clark 16th century glass beads the letters of Lis and Clark expedition by Don Jackson world of shipwrecks a bead Premiere a history of beads all these combined is what I come
34:08 up that we use to come up with this presentation this here is actually a buffalo bone knife and that was uh a kids toy now here we go with blue beads the blue pony beads what if Lewis had more of them Indian presence became the clothing for the core of of Discovery to
34:31 survive and they were not given as gifts like I said some Native Americans rep these beads represented the spirit world and when the classics proved great hegers and trade when why did the captains take that as an [Applause] insult tobacco and blue beads they do prefer to everything December 20th 1805
34:54 Lewis wrote I Bartered my Al skins old irons and two canoes for beads one of the canoes for which they had given us but little had I cut up for fuel April 20th 1806 so on the way back they knew the blue beads were so valuable that they actually traded canoes and got blue beads back from the Indians to trade on
35:15 their way home and as we end here uh everything we need to survive is out there on the Prairie will we ever understand what's there and we are products of the fur trade whether people want to admit it or not we are products of the fur trade and always remember that the ground is an open book to those
35:38 who can read the writing and understand it and that's all I have for now for my presentation up here but I've brought beads along here and I'll field questions for any of you and you're welcome to touch these beads and that but like I asked at the beginning you don't take pictures other than the park personnel because I'm actually being paid by the park service okay so is
36:02 there any questions if you have any questions please raise your hand I'll bring the microphone around to you so everybody can hear your question we'll be up here and you can handle the beads and ask questions up here also if you want any questions all right well let's give
36:27 Steve
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Steve McCracken on Trade Beads and the Lewis and Clark Expedition

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