Beads

small perforated globules or cylinders used for ornamental purposes. They may be made of different material, as amber, coral, garnet, steel, pearl, rock crystal, and various seeds, but chiefly of glass. Glass beads have been found in the cases of Egyptian mummies, in the ruins of Nineveh, and in the burial places of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Britons. The Phoenicians are believed to have understood the manufacture of glass beads, 3000 B. C. During the Middle Ages, Venice became noted for the manufacture of beads. It is still the most important center of the industry. Millions of pounds are made each year. The glass is first stained with any desired luster, or variegated by threads of different colored glass, and is then drawn out into tubes of the desired diameter. The beads are then pinched off. If smooth ends are desired, the beads are heated almost to the fusing point. Some of the expensive sorts are cut and polished like diamonds.

As an article of barter, beads have played no small part, not only in the caravan trade of the ancients, but later in dealing with the savage tribes of India, Africa, and America. One writer enumerates no less than 400 kinds used in trading with the African negroes. The Indians of North America were skillful in weaving beads into the ornaments of their hunting shirts and moccasins. The wampum of the American Indian was in fact but a band of shell beads.

Civilized nations, as well as savages, are pleased with beads. They are worn as necklaces and are woven into laces and jet ornaments. In the service of the Roman Catholic church, a string of beads has long been employed as a convenient method of counting off prayers. "The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary," for instance, consists in the recital of fifteen decades of Aves; each ten is preceded by a Pater Noster and followed by a Gloria. The prayers are divided into three chaplets of five decades each; one for the joys, one for the sorrows, and a third for the glories of Christ. A string of beads consisting of one for each prayer in the chaplet is called a rosary. The penitent keeps track of his prayers by telling his beads, that is, slipping one through his fingers for each repetition. In fact, the name bead is derived from the old English word bede, akin to bid and bade, meaning a prayer. To tell one's beads is to say one's prayers. A beadsman is one who says prayers.

See Barter; Wampum; Glass

I envy them, those monks of old; Their books they read and their beads they told.--G. P. R. James, The Monks of Old.