Beads: a strong of success.

Beads made in Europe were once used to trade for West African slaves. Today, beads from Africa have found a flourishing market not only in Europe but also in the US and Japan. LARA PAWSON, in Accra, draws a bead on this fascinating new industry.

The first durable ornaments ever possessed by human beings are thought to have been beads. Aside from the fact that they can be used to adorn the body, either as jewellery or sewn into clothes, beads embody the most important characteristics of any item worth collecting. Not only are they durable, easy to transport and wildly diverse, they are also extremely valuable from both a traditional and modern consumer context. From time immemorial people have been unable to resist the myriad colours, shapes, designs and materials in which beads are available.

Escalating demand

Evidence that they are still sought after across the globe has never been stronger than it is today. In Africa more than in any other part of the world, beads continue to play a vital role in the display of different tribes' and communities' cultural heritage. It is also in Africa that the trade in beads is growing rapidly: not simply between West African (ECOWAS) states but as exports to Europe, North America and more recently, Japan.

Between 1992 and 1996, the value of beads exported from Ghana to foreign lands multiplied over 80 times from $493 to $39,222. In fact, 1996 proved a watermark year since the export figure for the previous year, at $8,737, was significantly lower.

According to Mr Tawia Akyea, executive secretary for Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC), "Beads have now become a real item of trade (in Ghana) and an industrial base for a small but increasingly significant cottage industry."

The escalating demand is put down to two reasons. First, many West Africans are living in the diaspora: their cultural values are still firmly intact and the significance of beads to their everyday lives remains strong. Second, foreign communities have always enjoyed wearing beads and the last 10 years has seen fashion in the north turn towards so-called ethnic goods. "They are fascinated by our culture," says Mr. Akyea, "and will pay significant amounts of money for African beads. In particular the response in the US, where so many of the diaspora reside, has seen an increase in the industry." However, he points out, "although there has been a definite growth in the last few years, the figures could be even more impressive if all exports were reported and recorded."

The president of Ghana National Association of Handicraft Exporters (GNAHE), Mr Kwame Adjusoo, who is one of Ghana's largest bead exporters, estimates that "Ghana is exporting far more beads than the recorded figures suggest. If the GEPC had access to all official and unofficial trading, the figures on file would quite literally treble."

Mr Adjusoo points the finger of blame for unregistered trade at the Senegalese - and to a lesser extent, Togolese and Beninois - head traders. "They are based at all the major bead centres, particularly Kumasi, and when they move their goods along the major container roads, they underdeclare the amount of beads they are transporting. The effect of this is twofold," he explains. "First, a drop in export figures. Second, because the Senegalese were the first to break into the Japanese, US and Scandinavian markets, some of the buyers assume that the beads are Senegalese. It is rather like the Swedish demand for "Gambian" wooden handicrafts: the crafts come from Ghana but Gambian traders sell them to Sweden. So when the Swedes trade with a Ghanaian, they think the goods come from Gambia. They don't."

But although the majority of Senegalese traders are, in Mr Adjusoo's words, "very, very rich: they usually have an apartment in the US which they use as a base for exports," he appreciates their entrepreneurial initiative. Thanks to the Senegalese, beads have been vastly popularised at a rate far quicker than would have been the case without them. Indeed, it was the Senegalese traders who first captured the Japanese market, as a result of which the Japanese are now coming to Ghana to buy beads. "They're quite crazy about Ghana's recycled beads which are a novelty to them," comments the GNAHE president. "Like the Americans, they go for the shinier, louder beads, whereas the Europeans, especially the Germans, tend to prefer duller colours."

Beads of time

While the contrasting beads-bias reveals something about the various regions' psyches - doubtless, that the Europeans are a touch more dour than their brethren across the Atlantic - it also reveals the great variety of beads on offer. There are glass beads, stone beads, seed beads and brass beads, beads made from elephant or cow bone, clay, shell and bacalit (plastic), bamboo, ebony and coconut. Each bead has its own value and many of the beads have an interesting story behind them.

For example, aggrey beads are some of the most expensive, fetching anything between $35-$90 (75,000200,000 cedis) a string. Chevron beads are also quite pricey - a good string would put you back about $75. The reason that chevron and aggrey are worth relatively large sums is their age. Commonly known as "trade beads," they were used up to 400 or 500 years ago in the slave trade. Between the 1500s and 1867, traders along the West African coast sold up to 15m Africans in exchange for mainly European-made beads. It is one of history's ironies that Africans are now selling them back to local traders who in turn are re-exporting them to their original home in the Western world.

But it is not just their age or the fact that they were exchanged for human cargo that makes beads so valuable. In Ghana, beads are intrinsic to the social system. Among the Ga-Adangbe peoples they have been used for centuries - and still are - for female rites-ofpassage ceremonies known as dipo. "Girls are literally smothered from head to toe in beads," explains Mr Akyea. "They are worn around the arms, legs, necks and especially the hips, to symbolise coming of age. It is because the beads are so valuable that they are used."

Beads also have a utilitarian value. "When a baby is born, strings of beads are tied around its waist, upper calves and arms so that the mother can check whether it is eating too much or too little," explains Ms Kati Dagadu, who sells beads from her own irresistible shop, SunTrade, in Accra.

"As the baby grows, more beads can be attached to the string." Sometimes beads are still used to heal babies when they are ill or distressed: a small string is put around the child's neck or waist and, within hours, it is better again. Before the advent of Western-style underwear, strings of beads were worn around the waste to hold up loin cloths and, during menstruation, women used them to hold up protective padding.

Today, beads also attract the attention of wealthy Ghanaian women. "Only a decade ago, beads were considered 'colonial', in other words, a little old-fashioned: high-class women only wore gold chains," Ms Dagadu recalls. "Twenty years ago, ladies accumulated beads so that they could sell them off as pensions in later life, or, if they had relatives, the beads would go into the family heir-loom. Now that there has been a re-admittance of beads into women's wardrobes, young women are digging out their mothers' or grand-mothers' old trunks to recover the beads."

New departures

The re-emergence of old beads in Ghana is paralleled by a growth in the manufacture of new beads, especially those recycled from glass. Glass beadmaking in sub-Saharan Africa dates back to the 16th century when it was concentrated in modern-day Niger, Nigeria and Ghana. Today, the Krobos, from Ghana's eastern region, are still producing the bulk of glass beads in West Africa. Take a trip to Agomenya or Koforidua markets and you will find hundreds of stalls dripping in beautiful, recycled glass beads in shades of deep-green, blue, palepink, red, yellow and translucentwhite. "Of all the West African states, Ghana has reproduced glass beads the most ingeniously," Ms Dagadu confirms. "Right now, the bead industry is based upon recycled glass."

These recycled beads are made out of anything from old beer bottles to sheets of imported glass. Scattered throughout the eastern region, tucked away in the hills, hundreds of small bead factories are each producing up to 3,000 beads a day.

The method is simple. First, the glass is broken down and smashed into small pieces using a block of stone. Then it is distributed into clay moulds, which are put into woodburning furnaces made from clay and mud. The moulds are left in the fire for several minutes until the glass has melted enough to be shaped and skewered through the middle. After they have cooled, the beads are removed and washed in water and sand, thereby smoothing off any rough edges. Finally, the beads are strung together, ready to be sold to the traders for between $2 and $50 each.

"The industry will expand from the very fact that recycled glass is used. It is environmentally friendly which is increasingly important to the fashion market," Ms Dagadu explains. "Glass bead production is on the verge of provoking an even greater industry: if we can recycle glass to make beads then why not manufacture other consumables - such as candle holders, picture flames, wine glasses - using the same principle?"

Indeed, why not? Technology is improving and the demand for beads is increasing; a significant number of Ghanaian art students are specialising in ceramics and more sophisticated ways of recycling glass are emerging. For example, a prototype gas-fired kiln has been designed to replace the more traditional and environmentallyunfriendly, wood-burning methods.

If anyone needs further proof of Ghana's burgeoning beads industry, they need look no further than the spiralling number of male traders. Mr Adjusoo is the first to admit, "initially, I thought it was a women's thing, however, I soon realised that these were things I could sell and that it is possible to make a lot of money from exporting beads."

Twice a year he goes to Frankfurt, home to the world's largest consumer trade fair. "In Germany, if you keep a close eye on fashion and have a nose for the market, it's possible to go to the four-day fair, show a good selection of beads, and sell the lot."

The trick of the trade is to read through a regular supply of European women's magazines, such as Elle and Ideal Home. From this premise, the alert exporter can design a myriad of necklaces, bracelets, anklets and hairclips in the latest seasonal colours. As Mr Akyea jokes, "It may be a female fashion but the moment there is money to be had, men begin to prick their ears!"