Bangles & Beads

African bead & stone adornments fulfill an important cultural function in African societies.  These African bead bracelets reflect the wearers’ beauty, culture, power, pride and identity.  Once African beads were valued as currency, today Africans continue to believe that beads can be infused with spiritual powers, to provide protection, invite good fortune, or impart fertility.  Women customarily use beads to enhance their beauty, entice men, and for healing and rejuvenation.  Today African people continue to use and wear beads to convey social position and identity, also for cultural recognition and status.

Ghana has a long tradition of bead culture dating back over 4000 years.  Most common stone beads found in Ghana today are bauxite beads, an industry that was already flourishing a century ago.  Most of the glass beads made in Ghana today are produced either by the Asante people, in villages near Kumasi, or by the Krobo people, in villages just beyond the Akuapem hills.