Fig. 38
[What a Child Can Do with Beads]
[CHAPTER V]
WHAT A CHILD CAN DO WITH BEADS
Long, long ago when the world was young, the child who wished for a gay and pretty necklace for her little brown throat strung berries and seeds or pieces of shell and bone that her father ground smooth by hand and pierced for stringing. For thread there were grasses and fibres of plants or sinews of deer.
Indian children sometimes used beads of clay, and so did the little Egyptians, for the fine clay by the river Nile made beautiful beads, as well as pottery. The children of the North—the little Esquimaux—had beads of amber, and the Indian tribes farther south strung shells that look so much like the teeth of animals one can hardly believe they are anything else. Look for them at the Natural History Museum and you will see that this is so.