Native American Trade Beads? #2

[Old Pueblo]

Found these glass beads on an old ranch here in Southern AZ, that dates back to the mid to late 1800s or so. Anyway, there is this garbage dump, one main area, and then a fairly large area of ground around it where you can see little bits of purple glass shards and white pottery and tins and stuff like that here and there. There is also some Native American stuff mixed in, including these beads. The red pottery sherds you see in the last photo are common finds at any old place around here, and may be from the old O'odham pottery trade from the late 1800s into the early 1900s a bit. The O'odham still traded for pottery and beads into the early 1900s around here, but I also found the scraper you see nearby, so that makes me think this ranch and garbage dump may have been established on top of an old Indian village site or something, and that the red pottery sherds could be from the villagers, and not from the pottery trade. Red pottery has been made like that for hundreds of years out here, and the way I tell the difference between older stuff and the more modern c.1900 stuff from the pottery trade is by where I find it. This dump is along a wash, coming out of the mountains, and thats where you find a lot of the old Indian sites, along the water or where there used to be water. But its also the site of a ranch, so theres a chance it could be from the more recent pottery trade too.

Hopefully I havent bored any of you too much with all that. Anyway, Ive never found any potential trade beads quite like these, so Id be interested in hearing anybody elses thoughts.


These are some photos of some other NA trade beads for comparison, and I think I have a match on the blue one.



Venetian Fur Trade Beads from the 1700s


Trade beads from Texas, said to be "surface finds" like mine


A bunch of other trade beads. The green one looks like it could be one of the ones at the top right.


Cobalt Blue trade beads from Oregon, which are very obviously ground down around the ends like my blue one. Im not sure, but I think these are more beads from Venice.



Trade beads from Alabama.

What do you guys think? Trade beads?

 

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[Old Pueblo]

Heres a photo of a Hudson Bay cobalt blue '"Chiefs Bead", which looks very similar to mine. And from what I know about the bead trade here in Southern AZ its that the Natives who made that red pottery you see in my photo often traded for blue and white beads. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/505388389412952335/

 

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[IAMZIM]

Cool beads. I know just enough about them to usually put my foot in my mouth.

From my experience with beads, the really early dates are valid for some sites around contact period. (English, Dutch, French along the east coast, Spanish in Florida, Texas, and into your area with missions, Russians in Alaska and the Pacific NW.) But many common styles extended for a long time in California, parts of the SW, and on the Plains where groups used beads for a lot longer.

The little green seed bead is 1840's in some areas, but the same beads were still be used well into the 1940's on reservations for tourist trade items. I think the Hudson Bay Company still sells them made on the same equipment in the same factory as they were made 150+ years ago. (Instead of furs, the Hudson Bay Company has evolved into owning a chain of department stores in Canada called The Bay and Saks fifth Avenue in the US.)

The blue beads are Venetian in some areas, Russian blues in other areas, but the reality is they cobalt blue beads were made pretty continuously from the 1700's through the late 1800's.

Thanks! That is some info that I needed. The Hudson Bay Company, as well as many other Trade companies definitely worked up here in Montana, although the Trade items I have found were more in the area that the Blackfoot had control over, and they only seemed to get along with Joseph Kipp and his grandfather James. They protected their fur bearing area very jealously, having a great distrust of white men. (I know, big surprise as most Natives didn't like white men so much! The Kipps were more Native American than white....) When Lewis and Clark came through, the Blackfoot stole a bunch of horses from them, and their was bloodshed over it......

 

[Old Pueblo]

I think I may have a match. These are some blue Padre beads, also known as Chiefs beads, from CHina, that were excavated in The Dalles area of the Columbia River, before they built the dam there. I know these Padre beads were very commonly used here in Southern Arizona by the local O'odham people all the way up into the early 20th century, so that has to be what this is.



http://teresakasner.blogspot.com/2011/11/trade-bead-story.html

There is a lot more interesting trade bead info here too. Definitely worth looking at.

 

[rock]

If and when I find one I will be sure to post it.

 

[bill_wabo]

The chevron beads can fetch some serious money in the east. I think there's a collector's market.

 

[southfork]

Here are a few trade beads from my place in N.California. The beads would wash out after a heavy rain my house sat right on top of a large native American village site. The beads were always irregular in size and shape.

 

[monsterrack]

This is some beads all PF that were traded to the Natchez tribes by the French around 1699-1720 .

 

[rock]

At the last show I attended PSAS which I am a member of there was a table next to mine and they had beads. I watched maybe 20 collectors come by their table and everyone stopped at the beads. Id say 75% of the people that stopped picked up a strand which was dark blue. Finally 1 person came back and bought the blue strand.