111. A Method of Bead-Making in Ashanti Author(s): G. E. Sinclair Source: Man, Vol. 39 (Aug., 1939), p.

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No. 111]
A METHOD OF BEAD-MAKING

MAN
IN ASHANTI.

[August, 1939.

By G. E. Sinclair, Administrative Service, Gold

and with the aid of the index finger tapped gently into the groove of the mould to form an even layer. This layer is then packed and smoothed with an evenly-trimmed feather, with which any stray granules are brushed away. Further layers of different colours are added in varying depths till the groove is filled and the powder is level with the top of the mould. The stalk of a cassava leaf is now cut to the length of the mould, straightened and covered with a slip of moist white clay (hyire). This stalk is no- pressed lightly into the surface of the powdered glass and covered with further layers of powdered glass till a cane is completed, one half section lying in the groove, and the other half being raised above the mould. Great skill is needed in adding the final narrow strip of powder to complete the dome of the cane. The fully charged mould is now taken in a long pair of tongs and placed in a bed of burning charcoal over which is built a wooden furnace. The furnace is made from four logs enclosing the charcoal bed in a square, and smaller logs which are fitted closely over the top, leaving opposite ends only small draught vents at tw%-o of the square. The bead-makers then take fans of hide or w-oven palm-leaf and, fanning, make a gentle draught plav on the vents of the furnace. Gradually this draught is increased until the heat of the furnace makes near approach impossible. When the firing is finished the glowing mould is removed from the furnace in long iron tongs and the fused glass cane levered from the mould a knife. With the knife the bead-maker with wi-ith sawing movements makes slight cuts at regular intervals along the cane and snaps off the lengths thus formed. The cassava stick in the miiiddleof the glass has been carbonized and a hole has been left. The glass of the beads thus formed is opaque the beads described in Mis, 1937, and-unlike completely fused. The beads are 115-almest are smoothed on a grooved stone and still rough before they are ready for stringing. This process of bead-manufacture, the source of which is as yet unknown to the wN-riter,is common in this part of Ashanti, and the beads, which are w-ornround the waist or below the knee, find a ready market.

Coast. Illustrated. In MAN, 1937, 115, appeared an account of powdered glass is now taken into the shell
of bead-making to which the following description of an alternative process may serve this The -wTiter watched as a supplement. process of manufacture in July, 1937, at Goaso, a village in the Ashanti forest 86 miles west of Kumasi.

FIG.

1.-BEAD-MAKING

IN

ASHANTI.

The mnould(Fig. 1, top) is made of coarse red clay (buc) and later covered with a slip of fine
white clay (hyire). The groove, running the

length of the mould, has a diameter of about 2/5 inch and is straight. Other moulds were built on a slight curve. The powdered glass, of various colours, used for the process w-as bought in packets from stores in Kumasi; but the bead-maker, an Ashanti, stated that in old times bottles were ground dow-n to serve this purpose. Whether the Ashanti knew the process of making glass is uncertain. The Nupe of Northern Nigeria make their own glass, but the w-riter has as yet no evidence of people nearer Ashanti who do this. glass powder of various The process.-The colours is poured into separate pans. The mould is taken in the left hand and a piece of trimmed snail shell (Fig. 1, below) in the right hand. The shell is held bet-ween the thumb and second finger while the index finger is left free. A scoop

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