Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 269, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1911 — BEADS POINT TO STRANGE THEORY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BEADS POINT TO STRANGE THEORY

A STRING of little black beads, linked together with gold, brought to Indianapolis a few days ago is regarded by antiquarians of the far west as substantial evidence in support of the theory that the American Indians are of old world descent The beads Were a present to Mrs Claire Bell, 428 North Alabama street from her mother, Mrs. B. I. Canfield, who is a teacher In the Sherman institute, a school for Indian children at Riverside, Cal., and they are the work of the girls In the school The beads are pellets about the size of a pea and jet black. They are hard and metallic to the touch, but are as light as paper. The wonderful peculiarity about them is that they have a strong, agreeable odor df roses, an odor that nevef will leave them, and it is this peculiarity that makes them of such Interest to antiquarians. For, according to Mrs. Canfield, who received her information from a paper published by a California antiquarian who became absorbed in the study of the beads —not this particular string, but others like them made by the Indian girls of the southwest—beads remarkably similar to these have been found in the pyramids of Egypt and in temples of oriental antiquity. Those beads, in spite of the fact that they had been buried for scores of centuries, still retained a -strong, delicate scent of roses.

A comparison of these beads with rare strings of beads in the possession of Indians of the southwest, who are supposed to have migrated north from the Inca settlements In Peru, showed them to be identical, As the beads Were wholly unlike anything else of known existence, the conclusion was reached that the ancestors of the Indians must have been either the makers of the beads found inf the pyramids or their ancestors.

White men were deeply puzzled over the composition of the beads, and it was supposed that the manufacture of them must be one of the lost arts. But when the Indians discovered the interest that had been aroused tn their relics, they found that the method of making them bad been transmitted through the tribe by tradition. They set to work, accordingly, and duplicated the pellets, to the astonishment of the white men. The secret of the Indians did not remain exclusively tribal for very long, however, since a great demand arose at once for the rose-scented beads. The art was taught to a large number of the Indians, and from them it leaked out, until now there is no longer a mystery about their manufacture.. But the novelty of it Is just as Interesting as the mystery. The secret of the scent of roses is that the beads are actually made of rose petals. . "The Indian girls at our school hold parties to make the beads," said Mrs Canfield, “much on the order of the fudge parties of their white sisters, or more like the old-fashioned spinning or quilting parties.

“They gather bushels and busbela of rose plants, which grow, as you know, in profuse abundance In California. They grind these petals up very fine, running them through a grinder seven times seven times—you mustn’t say forty-nine times, for there is a mystic significance to them in the expression ‘seven times seven* which la lost in the prosaic ‘forty-nine,* and this mysticism, they believe, has an important part in the result of their labors. ‘When the petals are properly ground they are put into iron pans and tincture of iron is poured over them. That ends the first party, for It Is necessary to let the mixture set for several days, so that the tincture will eat into the Iron of the pan and color the composition black. Every time one of the girls passes a pan during thia period of ’ripening’ she stirs the mixture with bar hands, so that it

will have the proper color and consistency all the way through. | "After the mixture has ’ripened' tho girls gather again to make it into beads. It is a black, viscous substance, thick enough to remain in anyf shapo into which it may be rolled. The moisture in It has been supplied by. the juice of the rose petals, which runs cut in surprising quantity during the process of grinding, and by the tincture of iron. “The girls take small quantities of this viscous substance from the pans and roll them into pellets such as you see in this string. They are very deft| at the work and very painstaking, non stopping until the pellet is perfectly! "These pellets are then pierced with hatpins, and are strung on the’ pins to dry. When a big beadmaklng> party is given at our school there is a hatpin famine in Riverside, for the* girls buy up all they can find at thei stores. "Then the Indian maidens stretch strings across their bedrooms and from these strings they suspend the hatpins to allow the beads to dry. The process of drying consumes several days, and during this time the girls very jealously avoid raising dust in their queerly decorated rooms. “When the beads are dry they are taken off the hatpins and the little rough spots caused by piercing them are carefully polished off. You have then a neatly-pierced, black, permanently rose-scented bead ready for the jeweler." Mrs. Canfield has been in the government service for 17 years as a teacher of Indians, first in the reservation schools and finally in picture esque Riverside, and she has an abundance of first-hand information of Indian life and character that is highly interesting. Learn White Man's Petty Grafts.. One of her regrets is that the dian artisan, engaged in the making of blankets, baskets and other beautiful curios, is learning the vices of thw; white man, so that now Inferior articles are being made and sold so extensively that only an expert is free ’ from the danger of being swindled. Their education at the Sherman fn*i stitute consists of the common school education, including the eighth grade, and In addition they are given industrial training. Upon graduating fronts the school the Indians are at liberty to do as they please Some of them go to the higher institutions of learning,: such as the Carlisle school, and some, whose parents can afford it. enter other large American colleges. Others go back to their reservar tions, where they become teachers In the reservation schools or enter into the active life of the tribe, where their, superior education soon makes themleaders. Still others, attracted by| their , summer work, hire themaedYW out as skilled servants to the Californians. A few go to the cities and become a part of the great active world of America, putting themselves upon wf equal footing and in competition withhave more than made good in the battle of the big city. Romances begun at the echoed M| rmentlv culminate in marriage after having proudly claimed a bashful Mini marries a white man, or an Indian? zufltn a white ffirl blit to Vto it _

INDIAN GIRL MAKING BEADS