History of the Festival Tribal Beads

Harmony Tribe has picked some of the best festival practices from around the country to incorporate into Sacred Harvest Festival. One of these is a 'Tribal Bead'.

The Tribal Bead is given to each participant, sometimes on arrival, sometimes at the opening ritual, and sometimes in pieces and additions are made during the festival and it is assembled. The effect is to add one more aspect to the feeling of community the festival generates! Nine out of the fourteen years, it has been designed by Nels Linde and Judy Olson-Linde. Made by HT Members and our great community in advance and bisque fired, and then smoke fired in the first festival fire.

To make your own, make an original design with no undercuts out of red clay. Fire it, and then use it to make several molds in red clay of the original, both sides if needed, and fire them. Red clay is used as it holds detail well and fires reasonably hard but still remains water absorbent. This aids the release when pressed into wet Raku clay (a coarse clay designed to withstand temperature shock in the fire),  Use white Raku clay for the actual beads, either weighing small spheres, or estimating the amount per bead. Either press between two molds or press one side onto a cookie sheet. Avoid handling much to preserve the detail when wet. Trim off edges and punch a whole through for suspending it on cord. Fire these beads in a kiln to harden them. To 'smoke' them, dig a shallow fire pit, maybe four inches deep. Place a brick or rock in the center to support a fire grate. Place beads upon a base of cedar or pine chips,on edge in rows, leaning on the center rock. Cover them with more woos shavings and then with a layer of tin foil. Cover with a grate and build a camp fire. If you wish the beads to retain some variated black smoke color on the beads, don't make the fire too hot or too big. A moderate fire will make the chips burn, but too hot will burn the smoke color back out of the beads when they reach about 800 degrees if under a huge bed of coals. Let the fire burnout and carefully excavate and see the beauty the next morning!