Consumer Choice and Beads in Fugitive Slave Villages in Nineteenth-Century Kenya

Abstract

This study analyzes the consumption of European glass beads at two fugitive slave villages in nineteenth-century Kenya, Koromio and Makoroboi. The consumer choices of Koromio and Makoroboi residents reveal a strategic and symbolic material language. Specifically, the interhousehold distribution of European glass beads reflects considerable variation in the performance of female identity. This distribution suggests varying norms of feminine adornment. Some of these norms likely originated in runaways' natal communities; others may have developed during enslavement. The variability in adornment practices additionally points to women's improvisation amid shifting gender relations in these nascent fugitive slave communities.

Crafting Swahili Beads: Exploring a New Glass Bead Assemblage from Northern Zanzibar, Tanzania

“…The overwhelming majority of glass bead studies from East Africa focus on the origin of beads, their proposed trade routes, and their chemical composition, rather than how they were adopted, adapted, modified, and used in the societies in which they ended up (except Pauly & Ferrandis, 2018;Rødland et al, 2020; also see Robertshaw, 2020). However, their temporal and geographic ubiquity suggests they were an important article of personal adornment, barter, and ritual and religious activity (e.g., Donley-Reid, 1990;Marshall, 2019). Regional and local preferences and availability seem to have played a significant role in the valuation and use of glass beads at different Swahili coastal towns.…”