Intertribal Life Newspaper -

North American Native Beadwork is an art form which evolved to mostly use glass beads imported from Europe and recently Asia. Glass beads have been in use for almost 500 years in the Americas. Today a wide range of beading styles flourish.

Alongside the widespread popularity of glass beads, bead artists continue incorporating natural items such as dyed porcupine quills, shell such as wampum and dendrite. Wampum shell beads are ceremonially and politically important to a range of Eastern tribes and were used to depict several important treaties between the Native peoples and the colonis...