A non-profit educational foundation created for the purpose of preserving Native American artifacts, art, and culture.
A non-profit educational foundation created for the purpose of preserving Native American artifacts, art, and culture.

18 September 2023; Heishi and Pump Drills

Beads come in many different shapes and colors

The bead in a disk shape, called heishi, featured on this necklace are made out of coconut shell. To make the coconut shell into beads, a hole was drilled using a pump drill like the one below:

Pump Drill
Photo from http://makezine.com/

Beads were drilled halfway through on one side, and then flipped over to drill from the underside to meet in the middle. The individual pieces were then strung together and shaped with stones, sand, and other tools to make the beads uniform. These tools could also be modified to create the detailed lines that can be seen on the Thunderbird focal piece!

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