Kiffa Beads are rare glass powder beads. They were named after the town of Mauritania Kiffa, where the French ethnologist R.Mauny documented it for the first time in 1949.
The Kiffa beads represent one of the highest levels of artistic skill and ingenuity in the making of beads, made with the simplest materials and tools available: European framed glass beads or fragments, glass bottles, pottery shards, cans, twigs, steel needles , some Arabic sap, and an open fire. The term Kiffa bead, named after one of the old Kiffa bead making centers in Mauritania, was created by a United States bead collector during the 1980s.
According to Peter Francis, Jr., the manufacture of powdered glass beads in West Africa may have existed for several hundred years, and probably 1200 CE in Mauritania. Maure glass powder beads are believed to copy older, Islamic beads, of a kind made in Fustat and elsewhere. Although the manufacture of Mauritania glass powder beads appears to be an ancient tradition, there is no archaeological evidence to establish their age has been found to date.
Video Kiffa beads
Production
The finely crushed glass becomes powder mixed with a binder such as saliva or gom arab dissolved in water. Decorations made of glass slurry that is crushed glass mixed with a binder and applied with a pointed tool, usually a steel needle. The beads are placed in small containers, often canned sardines and heated to blend the glass on open flame without molds.
Kiffa beads are made in various forms: blue, red, and polychromatic triangles with yellow, black, white, red and blue chevron and eye-like decorations; beads of blue, red and polychromatic diamonds; shaped cigars and cone beads as well as various small round and oblate beads. The sequence of colors observed in traditional beads with polychromatic decorations is always the same, ie red-yellow-black (dark brown) -yellow-red-white-blue-white. Often the front is decorated as well, and it is believed that different beads make the family have its own style. For the wearer, all these beads have amuletic properties. The colors, shapes and many different elaborate decorating patterns all have special meanings, mostly forgotten today.
Maps Kiffa beads
Usage
Kiffa diamond-shaped beads are traditionally worn on bracelets, stitched on leather strips, and arranged in traditional sets consisting of blue to red specific ratios for polychromatic specimens. Their patterns are believed to protect and enhance the wearer's fertility and it has been suggested that some may mimic cowrie shells. The round and round beads are used as a hair ornament and the traditional collection can consist of two complementary sets of three triangulars each, one blue, one red and one polychromatic, worn at the height of the temple. Many of the small spherical or oblate beads are ornate or worn in necklaces in various combinations with other glass and stone beads and are made by decorating the "core" of red, blue or white glass beads. Glass porridge decoration was applied to 19th century beads that may have come from the Czech Republic. Smaller, cigar-shaped or cylindrical beads are often also found to have been constructed of two or even three of the beads that were formed. It is fragile and tends to break easily.
Modern beads
With the passing of the remainder of the traditional bead maker left over during the 1970s, Kiffa bead's craft became extinct. Since the early 1990s, groups of reorganized female bead makers have made Kiffa beads, using the same traditional method. However, the work of new beads has never reached the high standards and quality that can be observed in old beads. Western artists have made their own versions in polymer clay or glass lampworked, but no modern creations come close to resembling the beauty of traditional specimens. The same applies to modern imitations made elsewhere, for example in Indonesia.
References
Allen, JD (1996). "Kiffa Beads". Ornaments . 10 (1): 76-77.
Busch, J (1994). "From Powder to Magic". Bulletin of the Manik-Isnun Community of Great Britain (25): 3-6.
Busch, J (1995-1996). "Tradition of Kiffa Beads in Mauritania". Bulletin of the Manik-Isnun Community of Great Britain (30, 35, 45): 3-8, 7-9, 3-8.
Delaroziere, M-F (1984). "Les Perles Mauritaniennes". Ornaments . 8 (3): 24-27.
Delaroziere, M-F (1985). "Les Perles de Mauritanie". Edisud, Aix-en-Provence .
Cork, J (1982). "Sahara bijoux and technique". Neuchatel, Baconniere .
Gumpert, A (November-December 1995). "Kiffa once and future". The Bead Society of Greater Washington Newsletter . XII (5): 1-3.
Liu, RK (1984). "African Artificial Glass Ornaments". Ornaments . 8 (2): 52-57.
Mauny, R (1949). "Fabrication de perles de verre en Mauritanie". Africaines Notes . 44 : 116-118.
Opper & amp; Opper, H & amp; MJ (1989). "Kiffa Beads". Alexandria, USA .
Opper & amp; Opper, H & amp; MJ (1989). "The rare Kiffa Mauritania beads". Ornaments . 12 (3): 25-32.
Opper & amp; Opper, H & amp; MJ (1992). "Update on Kiffa Beads". Bead Society of Greater Washington Newsletter . 9 (1): 4-5. Ã,
Opper & amp; Opper, H & amp; MJ (1993). "Beads of Powdered Glass and Beading Trade in Mauritania". Beads (5): 37-44.
Robert, DS (1970). "Les fouilles de Tagadoust". African History Journal . 11 (4): 471-493. doi: 10.1017/S0021853700010410.
Listen, E (2006). "Traditional Mauritanian Powder Kiffa Beads". Ornaments . 3 (29): 50-54.
Listen, E (2006). "Kiffa Beads of Mauritania Glass Powder". Ornaments . 5 (29): 60-63.
Sternberg, I (2000). "Pursuing the Rainbow". Lapidary Journal . 3 (54): 40-45.
Vanacker, C (1984). "Perles de verre decouvertes sur le site Tegadoust". Journal des Africanistes . 2 (54): 31-52.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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