Beads vary in material (bone, glass, horn, seeds, shells, stones and fossilised materials), their significance, colour, size, and their placement on the body or clothing. All these denote and evoke different meanings in different tribes. In most African tribes, beads embody beauty, tradition or culture, strength, marital status, age, power and warrior-hood. They have also been used as a form of currency. Trade beads can be dated as far as the 15th century, when European trading ships would travel to West Africa to draw on resources such as gold, ivory, palm oil and slaves. At the time, glass bead making technologies were more sophisticated in Europe, which made these colourful beads very attractive and highly valued to the African elite who were willing to accept the beads as a form of exchange.
The Maasai, Samburu, Turkana and Rendille tribes are highly associated with beadwork in Kenya. They can be found in Kenya’s northern Great Rift Valley. Some of their notable characteristics are the elaborate African beaded jewellery encircling their necks, red-painted chins with ochre, beaded headdresses, stacked beaded bracelets jangling on their wrists, and to the married ones, heavy brass earrings. The women in these tribes wear these beaded pieces as a sign of wealth, marital status, health and to denote the number of children they have. For instance, if a woman’s first child is a boy, she wears many earrings. The same applies for women with several male children. Similarly, traditional wedding collars have several beaded strands hanging off them. This represents the amount of dowry paid for that bride, which in most cases takes the form of cattle.
Beaded Jewelry is highly common and valued. Many tribes in Kenya excel in making elaborate necklaces and bracelets. The beads come from Nairobi, we were told. Later we have read that most of them come from the Czech republic! Throughout centuries, beads were obtained by different means and always intermixed themselves into the culture of the Maasai. They traveled through the trans-Saharan and coastal trade from as far as India.
