Story Teller Beads

Sandra Paluzz 
The Bead Peddler®

We all tell stories.  We tell our friends our life stories - hoping to find common ground.  My six year old nephew is afraid of my dog.  I tell him cute stories of Chuckles,  hoping to instill love where there is now fear.  We pass on our family history by telling our children stories of our own childhood and of our ancestors.

Story telling is universal.  It is as old as the human race.  Before books became readily available, stories were told to teach religion, cultural values and tribal history.  In some cultures, beads were soon employed to help tell those stories.

The earliest story telling beads were figural beads - replicas of animals and people.  Those beads were often strung together in a necklace.  When a story was being told, the women would finger the beads showing the child the rabbit or bead she was describing.  The women would finger the beads one by one as the story progressed.  It was not dissimilar to turning the pages in a book. 

Some native tribes still keep their story telling alive.  Native American Indians, East European gypsies and native Africans still tell stories and still use story bead necklaces.   Sometimes the storytellers are women, sometimes they are men.  They are held in high regard in their tribe.  While it is a dieing art, some people are actually professional oral story tellers.  They still use story telling beads to keep their stories alive.  

Ethiopian born Jane Kurtz  recently wrote a children's book of two girls who are forced to flee from their homelands.  One child leaves with her grandmother's story telling beads.  The book has been picked up by many elementary schools.  Kids can be seen fashioning story teller beads out of polymer clay.

Today the story tellers themselves are being immortalized in pottery figures and story teller necklaces by Native American Indians.  The story teller necklace does not contain figures of people or animals in the story.  Rather it is made up of a story teller with many children.  Frequently the story teller bead is the center figure of the necklace and the children surround him/her on both sides. And the story teller necklaces of today are not limited to figures of people .  Frogs, turtles, mudheads, etc are all represented as storytellers with their children surrounding them.  But as we all know, children are not the only people who enjoy a good story.  We never outgrow our love of a good story.

Register to win 25.00 Worth of Beads and   Beading Supplies

 Click here to visit The Bead Peddler®

Full line of
  * Bali sterling
    beads   
 * Indian glass
    beads
 * Czech beads
 * Stringing
    materials
 * Tools   
 * Findings.

Wholesale prices available to the public!