Today was a very full day! We started the day by traveling about two hours outside of the city to reach Cedi Beads where we learned all about beads.
The drive to Cedi Beads was the first time really seeing the severe poverty of Africa. We thought we had seen poverty in the city, but it was nothing compared to what we drove through in the more rural areas.
Homes were made of what appeared to be scrap metal, likely from landfills. The streets were lined with trash as far as the eye could see; smoke was coming from indiscernible sources. Unclothed children were playing in the streets and some ran towards our bus waving with smiles. We could tell that many adults were also starring, but most with less friendly faces than the children. We must have looked like a spectacle—14 people on a 50 person bus. Most people were outside in the middle of the day, likely because there are very limited jobs in the area (but it was also a Saturday so I’m not sure). It felt like we were driving in silence because everyone had their eyes glued to the windows. You hear about this kind of poverty in books, on TV, in social media—but something about witnessing it was so surreal to experience. I did not take any photos that would really illustrate the intensity of the situation, as I did not want to be rude to the local Ghanaians.
Cedi Beads is a bead making company run by Nomoda Ebenizer Djaba, commonly known as Mr. Cedi. Mr. Cedi directs and owns the Retado Bead Industry in Odumasi/Krobo and is known as one of the best beadmakers who sells locally and internationally. He explained to us that his family has been making beads for hundreds of years out of whatever resources they had at their disposal—wood, clay, etc. Now, Mr. Cedi’s beads are made by using recycled glass from bottles, broken window panes, etc.
An example of Mr. Cedi’s beads--hand painted glass beads.
He explained to us the methods of his bead making, the differences in the beads, and who would wear what beads. There are certain beads reserved for royalty that are finely polished and decorative. Like the traditional African textile fabrication methods, it is impressive how Mr. Cedi’s bead making processes has been perfected.
Above, Mr. Cedi showed us the process of designing a glass bead made from a very fine powder known as a bodom bead.
West Africans and bead collectors alike place a high value on bodom beads; they are arguably some of the most fascinating of beads because there is controversy about where they came from, who made them, and how they are manufactured (Liu, Ahn, & Giberson, pg. 28, 2001).
Bodom beads are made using what is called powder glass technology.. Cruciform designs and eyes are the most common bodom bead designs (Liu, Ahn, & Giberson, pg. 28, 2001).
Using a shot glass and small dowel, Mr. Cedi layered and manipulated finely ground glass into the above eye design. Each of these beads require about 5 minutes to design in a mold. They are some of the more expensive beads he offers. In reality, he would not make this design in a small shot glass—he uses a clay mold that he can then fire to melt the glass into a bead. You can tell that there is a piece of wood at the center of the shot glass—this is to make the hole in the bead to later string it.
The above illustration is a visualization of Mr. Cedi’s bodom bead making process, as observed by Dudley Giberson. Figure 1 represents Mr. Cedi’s furnace, made of termite mound clay. The furnace opens in front and has a hole in the rear for fuel, such as wood or palm nut husks. Figure 2 is the tool that we observed Mr. Cedi using to design the bead. It is used for designing layers in the mold (Liu, Ahn, & Giberson, pg. 31, 2001).
Overall, the above figure illustrates the clay mold being filled with glass powder with the stick at the center to create the hole in the bead. The bead is then fired, where it shrinks slightly, and then an iron mandrel is inserted into the bead which removes it from the mold. The bead is then turned upside-down and re-inserted in the mold. Figures 13-15 show the bead being shaped when it is still malleable. The bead is then decorated and given a final shape. However, it is important to note that this method is not a universal one (Liu, Ahn, & Giberson, pg. 31, 2001).
Above are bowls of crushed glass, used to make the more common beads. The green bottles are recycled Heineken, the white are Coke bottles, and I believe the blue glass is Sky Vodka (we saw some of the intact bottles sitting around his workshop).
The pieces of glass are designed in bead molds. We had the opportunity to design a set of 5 small beads and one bodom bead. (Unlike Mr. Cedi’s bodom bead-my attempt was nothing to write home about)
Here is the furnace used to fire the glass
And here I am sitting where the beads are polished. The polishing process requires one rub the beads (with some water) against the rock until they have the desired finish.
Buy some of Mr. Cedi’s work on the International Folk Art Market’s online shop.
You might be wondering, what do Ghanaians do with all of these beads?
One answer to this question is: waist beads.
Women wear long strands of the beads that sit loosely on their hips, commonly referred to as waist beads. Generally, they wear one to six strands at a time. These beads are conventionally concealed from view, or worn under the clothes. Lamenting their sexualization, it is claimed that “in the past, if a man other than a husband touched this part of a woman’s body or the bead strands hidden there he could be charged with adultery” (McLeod 1981: 144). Because waist beads could become clearly visible while wearing Western-style clothing, they are worn less frequently. (Visible waist beads highlights a sense of immodesty and general poor fashion sense.)
A loose comparison for the sexual charge of a Ghanaian woman’s waist beads would be to think of an American women’s lingerie, as women may wear waist beads when going to bed with their boyfriends or husbands. It is noted that “the auditory and visual suggestions of a woman’s waist beads are considered especially enticing to men” (Johnson & Forester, pg. 84, 2007).
Beyond their sexual implications, they have much deeper associations to Ashanti and Asante and Akan women. The beads have spiritual roots; certain beads of supernatural origin are believed to enhance fertility when worn as waist beads (Johnson & Forester, pg. 85, 2007). Mothers will adorn their infant daughters with loosely tied strands of waist beads around their hips, wrists, and ankles to help her develop a full, beautifully shaped body (Johnson & Forester, pg. 86, 2007). They are then worn again by the girl when she is coming of age, after reaching puberty. (Johnson & Forester, pg. 86, 2007). Women are also buried wearing their waist beads, because It is believed that dressing a woman’s corpse in waist beads signifies her as a respectable, responsible woman (Johnson & Forester, pg. 92, 2007).
On the other hand, the powers of waist beads have a dark side: “a reoccurring theme in Akan witchcraft beliefs associates malevolent witchcraft and women’s waist beads” (Johnson & Forester, pg. 90, 2007). Fertility is one of the most fundamental ideas of Akan womanhood, which is very closely tied to the powers of the waist beads. Therefore, if a woman has difficulty becoming pregnant or is found to be infertile, she may accuse the one who gifted her with the waist beads as using witchcraft.
Waist beads truly embody a living Ghanaian tradition that “far transcend(s) conventional understandings of ornamentation” (Johnson & Forester, pg. 93, 2007). They allow a woman to express her femininity while acting as a source of living and life-giving forces by means of touch. Waist beads are just one of the ways that Ghanaian women ornament themselves with beads like the ones produced at Cedi Beads.
Johnson, D. C. & Foster, H. B. (2007). Dress Sense: Emotional and Sensory Experiences of the Body and Clothes. New York: Berg.
Liu, R. K., Ahn, P. M., and Giberson, D. (2001). “Bodom and Related Beads: Investigating African power-glass technology.” Ornament, 28 – 33.
