Value' can be measured in many different ways. For example, an item s value may be weighed in terms of it s exchange value as a commodity, in contrast to an item s symbolic religious value. Europeans saw glass beads as merely blobs of melted glass, 'trinkets', cheap and inexpensive as an exchange commodity. In contrast, beads were symbolically 'valuable' and very much desired by Native Americans for what they represented to Natives . At the onset of European trade, glass beads weren't necessarily desired by Natives for their 'monetary' or exchange value but rather for their symbolic value.
Beads are traditionally part of ritual exchanges.
Beads are valued more for the symbolic associations of the form, material, color and other aspects, than for what an item is 'worth' in raw commodity exchange. Europeans figured that glass beads and other baubles were valuable merely because they were perceived as coveted luxury or prestige items. Glass beads and other trade items were undoubtedly new to Native Americans, but the attributes of their forms, materials and colors were not foreign. What was new to Natives about the trade items was the source, Europeans, and the huge increase in availability of items with otherwise rare qualities. In the Northeast, round, polished, glassy beads are associated with seeds, berries, shells and crystals, life, light, sight, and related concepts.