History of Maasai Beadwork

Glass beads were orginally used as trading goods, coming to Africa in large quantities via Europe and India. Beads were traded as a currency for tea, coffee and sugar etc, and also as a popular payment for slaves during that long dark period of Africa's history.

The beads soon became very popular all over Africa and for some tribes they have become a symbol of their traditions, although the small colorful beads themselves are a rather late invention. Before the glass beads spread to east Africa, the Maasai and other tribes used seeds, shells, wood, bone and other natural materials for their ornaments. Nowadays the Maasai use the small colourful glass beads for their jewellery. 

The Maasai beadwork carries messages. They can express your age, your ancestory and the village where you were born. The patterns and colors in a bracelet are, for instance, made uniquely for each age group and it is the women's job to decide the style of the new jewellery they are making for their community. 

The colour fields in the Maasai jewellery are rarely large and divided by contrast colours. The Maasai hardly ever puts similar colours next to each other. The fields of colour are traditionally divided by a darker or brighter field. Contrasts are seen as beautiful and as a natural state. There must be night if there is day, peace if war, sun if rain, there’s always a opposite and when those two opposites stands next to each other then it’s in their eyes, beautiful.