Blue Bead or Pendant
date: label: Accession Date
content: 30 Aug 1870
name: label: Donor Name
content: Dr. Washington Matthews
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "MANDAN MANUFACTURE ACCORDING TO MATTHEWS. A CLAY CORE COVERED WITH GLASS."
label: Notes
content: Originally catalogued as "blue bead". Reidentified by Dr. William Billeck as Northern Plains style Native American manufactured pendant, blue, with five white dots, has hole at top for stringing; dates to after 1800.
label: Notes
content: Anthropology catalogue ledger book and catalogue card identify this object as Mandan. However, the collector, Washington Matthews, talks about a pendant that is probably this object in a publication of his and identifies it there as of Arikara manufacture. See p. 22 of Matthews, Washington. 1877. Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians. United States Geological and Geographical Survey, Miscellaneous Publications 7. Washington: "I have been informed by the Indians that in old days the art flourished among the Arickarees as well as among the Mandans; and certainly at the present day Arickaree women understand it. I had two of the triangular pendants made to order in 1870, by an Arickaree woman, to whom I furnished the blue glass necessary. When I gave instructions to have the articles made, I was invited to witness the process, but circumstances prevented me from doing so. One of these pendants was sent to the Smithsonian Institution."
label: Notes
content: Illustrated Figure 1a, p. 412 in William T. Billeck (2016) Ethnographic and historical evidence for glass pendant function in the Plains, Plains Anthropologist, 61:240, 410-424, DOI: 10.1080/00320447.2016.1245963
label: Record Last Modified
content: 7 Dec 2018
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Fort Berthold, Mclean County, Dakota Territory / North Dakota, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Arikara (Sahnish)
label: Culture
content: Mandan
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 001906
label: USNM Number
content: E9850-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Pendant
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 4 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 2.8 cm