How to Spot Beadwork That is Not Made by Native Americans

These days, many people create beautiful works of beadwork, including non-Indians. To clarify for the purposes of this article, I am not speaking of those who have been taught beadwork by Native Americans or who have learned it from someone who was but rather the manufactured beadwork that comes from overseas, usually Asia. Sadly, there is a lot of this type of beadwork around that is masquerading as authentic Native American beadwork. It’s not, and there are several things you can do to tell if beadwork was not created by Native Americans or someone who was taught by them.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Your eyes
• An understanding of the materials used by Native Americans to create their beadwork

1. Educate yourself about the materials used in Native American beadwork. Go to powwows and look at beadwork created by Native Americans or go to the library and find books with pictures. This will give you a good idea of what to look for.

2. If you aren’t sure if a piece of beadwork is authentic or not, one of the ways you can tell is to turn the beadwork over and look at the back. If the backing is not real leather, then this is a sign that the beadwork was not created by a Native person or someone who was taught by them. Generally when you see a vinyl backing, this is a sure sign the product was created in Asia, not the Americas.

3. Look at the color combinations. Anyone who has seen beadwork created by Native Americans and their students can easily tell from the color combinations if a piece is authentic. What I mean by this is if the background is opaque white,or turquoise and then there is a lot orange, black and maybe red, this can be a sign that the piece is not authentic.

4. Look at the colors again. Are they all opaque and sort of dull? If so, then this is a sign that the beads are plastic rather than glass. American Indians don’t do beadwork with plastic beads, so if you find a piece that is clearly made from plastic seed beads, it is most likely not authentic.

5. Now take a look at the pattern. What kind is it? One of the patterns that is duplicated over and over again particularly in medallion pieces from Asia is the thunderbird. While tribes did have thunderbird patterns, for some reason on these manufactured pieces they seem to like creating this one over and over. This is not a pattern that many native peoples use today in their beadwork.

6. How complex is the pattern? This is another giveaway. Most Native American beadwork patterns are pretty complex, so if the pattern is very simple, then this can also be a dead giveaway to a manufactured piece. This is not to say that there are no simpler patterns, because often when beginners are just starting out they will use simpler patterns, but typically the pattern will not just be the one figure on a solid background which you often see in manufactured pieces.

Tips & Warnings

• Only purchase beadwork from powwows and other places that native peoples and their students congregate. This will ensure that what you get is authentic.
• Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that just because people don't “look” Indian that they aren’t and hence their beadwork is not authentic. There are a lot of us these days who don’t have the stereotypical dark hair, skin and eyes. Some of us are blonde and fair skinned or red headed and dark skinned.
• Non-Indians cannot legally claim that their beadwork is authentically Native American even if they are taught by someone who is American Indian. I’ve included them here as being in the general sense of authentic because they were taught by Indians and their beadwork mimics our styles, patterns and methods. Because of this, I don’t personally consider their work to be not authentic.

[Lakota99]

on 12/23/2008 Thank you this has been helpful when i started liking my native culture, since no one in my family does it. Very good.

[herbalsheila]

on 3/20/2008 How very interesting. I had no idea that a lot of non-authentic beadwork that masquerades as American Indian was coming out of Asia. I shall be on the lookout for it and now I can be much more wary. Thank you so much!