Jeri Ah-be-hill talks about the history of beads

Jeri Ah-be-hill talks about the history of beads

Jeri Ah-be-hill talks about the history of beads and beadwork from a Native perspective. Jeri was filmed for the Origins episode of Craft in America.

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27 Comments

  1. @sexychica1321 on July 23, 2025 at 6:14 pm

    Thanks for sharing 💖

  2. @msavina9129 on July 23, 2025 at 6:19 pm

    Thank you. ive been wondering about the beads. What I really want to know is, how they heck did natives carve into bone, stone and animal tusks? When I google it, they only show modern techniques. I’ll keep looking.
    Thank you.

  3. @hookukio on July 23, 2025 at 6:20 pm

    Well we made beads in California…we made clamp disc beads and magnesite cylinder beads. The shells this woman is wearing on her neck are from the northwest coast of California and were traded throughout the plains.

  4. @SoldierDrew on July 23, 2025 at 6:24 pm

    She’s speaking from her tribal history but other tribes, like mine, we still make beads the traditional way. Cutting and drilling stones and molding beads from earth.
    But the glass seeds beads, she’s talking about, were non existent til foreign traders brought them.

  5. @sonnydash4987 on July 23, 2025 at 6:24 pm

    So there from China?

  6. @matokokepa on July 23, 2025 at 6:26 pm

    I had co-worker who didn’t know this. She never knew that Native people didn’t know how to bead until Europeans came across the continent trading for furs and meat. I had to explain this very thing to her. She laughed because she never knew. She’s younger and I get that a lot of the younger generation don’t realize that. Same thing with fry bread. We never had flour until Europeans brought it.

  7. @ceceliathex9924 on July 23, 2025 at 6:27 pm

    I am looking for how to sew dentalium shells to a cape. Can you help me out?

  8. @LouiseSolomon-wf4xd on July 23, 2025 at 6:29 pm

    Here in Alaska, I heard people used to make beads out of small pieces of wood. Yes, and use animal parts for thread. But then the traders started bringing in the beaded jewelry. Just stories i was told

  9. @meg4684 on July 23, 2025 at 6:29 pm

    Very informative, answered all my questions!

  10. @rebeccadurbin7628 on July 23, 2025 at 6:30 pm

    my great grandma (osage) married twice, first husband was osage (arranged marriage)-she had kids only by first husband , second husband was white. but lawerence made her beads outta certain type of soil, glass beads. thats how she got her beads

  11. @cfarlow5830 on July 23, 2025 at 6:31 pm

    Thank you for sharing this! Love your dentalium regalia.

  12. @martharousse-pz9hz on July 23, 2025 at 6:33 pm

    When I was a child we use to dig in the dirt as children do but we found the most beautiful beads really old beads that the Eskimo people would trade to get things they needed for survival I wish I had kept some my Great Grandfather traded alot of stuff with them and it is now at the Smithsonian there was a time he regretted giving it to them cause as usual they capitalize on. The profits money is the most important factor

  13. @Jearrod on July 23, 2025 at 6:33 pm

    This is just not true 💀

  14. @jeffvalliere2185 on July 23, 2025 at 6:39 pm

    Cut beads

  15. @marypopehn7834 on July 23, 2025 at 6:39 pm

    Are you daughter to Margaret??

  16. @jeffvalliere2185 on July 23, 2025 at 6:41 pm

    Miss you! My mother was Jerri Otis

  17. @AnahuacX on July 23, 2025 at 6:41 pm

    In Mexico there are Pre-colonial artifacts that show people wearing beads and decorating objects with beads, I’m not too sure how the indigenous of the North (Untied States) did it.

  18. @Thorium_Th on July 23, 2025 at 6:41 pm

    Finally! So it was trading. I always wondered how people without machines would produce tiny 2mm beads 😀

  19. @Wahcawatoglawin on July 23, 2025 at 6:46 pm

    Always wearing traditional regalia, strolling the plaza, in Santa fe 😊

  20. @SirBrackalot on July 23, 2025 at 6:47 pm

    love this Thank you…..

  21. @danielledesmarais3026 on July 23, 2025 at 6:51 pm

    Thank you for sharing Jeri Ah-be-hill! If I may add a little…it is very true we did not have seed beads like the ones the traders brought, BUT we did have many kinds of beads made from bone, stone, shell, quills (as was mentioned), and even seeds! So when the traders brought the new kind of small glass bead, we easily saw their value in expanding our creative and honour expressions. It is always a joy as an archaeologist to uncover our ancestors’ tiny bugle beads cut from small rodent or bird limb bones, and it makes me wonder if a child knocked over their mothers beads while playing…like I did?

  22. @yaguarete79 on July 23, 2025 at 6:57 pm

    So it’s a lot of us who’ve been asking this question. Finally! Now I’m wondering how didn’t I think about that possibility. Thank you for explaining it. Regards!

  23. @josephgalindo-vt6tc on July 23, 2025 at 7:01 pm

    They call me “bead master” out here in alaska

  24. @crazycoyotie4938 on July 23, 2025 at 7:03 pm

    Most things before industrial man landed in any county waz better but thy brought cheep things that lightened the load.I don’t think your ansisters traided for the cotton thread because it was better because sinue is 100% better then any thread incliding the fake sinue you buy from traiding post.

  25. @AbbiBerta on July 23, 2025 at 7:05 pm

    There is indisputable evidence of multiple shell bead manufacturing sites in North America dating to multiple pre-Colombian time periods. I believe she’s most likely referencing glass beads specifically in this video.

  26. @Eliasnotafraid on July 23, 2025 at 7:08 pm

    I thought there would be more info then that 😒

  27. @isisstar1280 on July 23, 2025 at 7:09 pm

    ❤️

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