This week, we’re venturing a short way off the beaten path, into the waters of summer. Once again, we’re going to explore a gem that isn’t precisely a stone, but that fills a similar role in Native jewelry. It’s a material in earthy neutral hues, but of a water spirit, one specific to Native jewelry of this particular region: Heishi.
To be entirely accurate, the term heishi refers only to a very specific style of beadwork made from one specific shell, and only to such beadwork when made by artisans of one specific Pueblo, Kewa (what most people still think of as Santo Domingo; a few years ago, its tribal council voted to discard the colonial moniker and restore its original indigenous name). As a practical matter, contemporary artisans of all Pueblos adopt the term heishi to apply to this particular style of shell beadwork. We’ll cover the vagaries of the style, both within and without its original context, in today’s post, but first, we’ll look at the shell from which it’s made.
Real heishi is made only from olivella shell, a gastropod mollusk in the family Olivellidae, known colloquially as “dwarf olive” because of its small size. Part of the Olivella genus (itself a subset of the larger group known as Oliva, hence the diminutive -ella form), it is a type of predatory sea snail. Perhaps the most commonly used in Native shell beadwork is olivella biplicata, the purple dwarf olive (which is brown and white as often as purple), but there are dozens of olivella species.
It’s a type of snail that is indigenous to the lands now known as the North America, and was used by Natives on the Pacific Coast as far back as 9,000 years ago. The shells were cut into beads for adornment and trade, and eventually also used as a form of currency. Massive and ancient trade routes sprang up along and among the Pueblos of what is now New Mexico, routes that extended far beyond their borders in all directions, with the result that olivella shells (and many other forms of currency and art and other valuables) made their way to the peoples of this area on a regular basis (in addition, of course, to the ancient shells uncovered in this area over millennia). The indigenous peoples here created their own forms of beadwork with the shells, and at Kewa Pueblo particularly, it developed into an old and very specific art form they called heishi. As I’ve written here before about the word:
It’s also a term that is tossed around loosely these days to refer to virtually any kind of jewelry featuring strands of small beads strung in a repeating pattern, but that’s a misnomer.
Today, so-called “heishi jewelry” encompasses everything from stones to shells, and in both disc- and tube-shaped beads. These are more accurately called “heishi-style,” and you will notice that that is how we refer to such bead strands here — unless, of course, they are actual heishi, like those in the featured piece at the top of this post.
The people [at Kewa Pueblo] have been known for centuries for their intricate beadwork jewelry, often featuring long, complex strands of alternating lengths of beads wound together. The word itself is their own, from their traditional language, Keresan, and it’s pronounced, roughly, “HEE’shee.”
Modern descriptions insist that heishi can be made in all sorts of sizes and shapes, including tube beads, doughnut beads, and disc beads. In actuality, the beads range from very small to minuscule, and the only genuine shapes are disc beads . . . .
Materials matter here, too. Today, you’ll see Indian jewelry from all over that is described as heishi when it’s made of turquoise, or coral, or some other stone, or virtually any sort of shell material. The original heishi was made specifically of olivella shells. Indeed, the word itself supposedly translates literally to “shell bead,” although many Pueblo language variants are unwritten and secret, for good reason. It may be a literal translation, or it may be simply a more modern (as in the last half-millennium or so) meaning accorded to it for the sake of convenience.
Heishi is also fragile, made as it is from a small shell cut carefully into even smaller thin drilled discs. Fracture, chipping, and cracking are all frequent occurrences, which means that the bead-cutting process must be slow and meticulous. The labor involved, combined with the likelihood of breakage, makes it a costly form of beadwork.
Much of the old heishi (genuinely old, not simply “old-style”) manifested in a neutral colors like the necklaces shown above and the one immediately below. These are old family pieces from Wings’s personal collection, not for sale, and they demonstrate clearly the old traditional style of beadwork: pieces of shell in a small spectrum of ivory and beige tones, cut by hand into small round disc shapes of approximately similar sizes, each hand-drilled at the center, then fitted together in a stacking pattern on long strands of heavy natural twine. Sometimes, the strands are wholly shell, as appears in the multi-strand necklace holding the pendant in the image at the top of this post. Often, the heishi is divided into sections, stone beads such as turquoise interspersed at regular intervals, as in these two old pieces.
And sometimes, the heishi appears in alternative segments with other beads cut in identical fashion of other materials. Such beads are commonly called heishi by contemporary sellers, but the most that can be said accurately is that they are heishi-style in cut and shape. That name belongs exclusively to the shell beads themselves. An example of this phenomenon appears in the necklace shown immediately below:
As you can see, the strand of beads used in this piece is composed of beads in virtually identical shape and size using several different materials: olivella shell, jet, coral, mother-of-pearl, turquoise. All are cut in the traditional heishi-style disc shape, but only those nearest the pendant, those made of olivella shell, are actually heishi. This is one of Wings’s own pieces, and thus was offered for sale using the correct terminology; more often, you’re likely to see sellers describe the entire strand as “heishi.”
The photo immediately below provides another example. In it are shown three separate strands of shell disc beads of similar size. Only the bottom two qualify as heishi; the top strand, a pale white-to-peach material, is made of melon shell, instead. It is absolutely an old traditional Native jewelry form, but it is simply a strand of shell beads.
As noted above, genuine heishi is expensive. Part of the cost comes from the sheer labor involved in creating the beads: For those who do their own cutting, it’s a huge investment of time and effort and skill; those who do not cut their own beads must buy them from those who do. Even in these days of modern machine-cutting, the breakage rate for something so fragile, crafted in such small thin sizes, must be enormous (in both senses of the word), and genuine olivella shell, like most natural resources, is growing more scarce. Even strigning the beads properly is a laborious effort, particularly when the strand involves alternating bead segments; it involves great care and concentration, in no small part because the number of beads must be chosen in relatively matched sizes and counted off accurately so that the strand appears balanced on either side. All of these factors, combined with its status as an ancient traditional art form, make its creation a costly endeavor, and the price of genuine heishi jewelry reflects that.
Once in a while, Wings will create a piece that uses an entire strand of heishi by itself, with no additional adornment beyond the pendant. An example is the work shown in the photo at the top of this post. More often, however, he interweaves heishi with beads of other materials, colors, shapes, and sizes, to create a work that is wholly unique, one designed and executed in his own highly individual style. A recent example may be found in his new Firebird Collection — specifically, in the RedTail necklace:
In this work, most of the beads are what is known as “doughnut beads” — rondels that are rounded outward at top and bottom in the general shape of a doughnut. Here, its begins with sponge coral at the center, alternating with onyx, then followed by a segment of Picasso marble. At the end, however, are graduated segments of traditional heishi beads in a dark tortoise-shell color. They provide a striking contrast to the other materials and shapes, and add an ancient touch of tradition to an otherwise more contemporary piece.
Some common colors and sizes of contemporary heishi are shown in the two strands above, a small but frankly average bead size, and in the four strands of beads shown immediately below. In the following image, the upper two strands qualify as very small; the lower two, as positively tiny. It’s a challenge to work with such beads because of their minute size, and it is very, very easy to drop and lose them in the process, another factor in their cost.
The four strands shown immediately above give a good range of available color, as well. The bottom strand is near-neutral, ivory interspersed with pale browns and grays; the upper strand is a warm golden color. The two in the center look a bit like tortoise-shell, but they also demonstrates where the purple mentioned earlier comes in: It’s a bit difficult to see in the photo, but in natural light, what appears to be dark brown actually is often a maroon or mulberry shade.
Wings has a couple of finished pieces in inventory that use heishi in the strands, including the RedTail necklace shown above. Another is his recent piece featuring a Botswana agate pendant and a bead strand made predominantly of hematite, The Night Eagle. All of the plain bead strands here remain in his inventory of materials, waiting for the appropriate work to incorporate them. If one of these exemplars of an ancient and beautiful tradition speaks specifically to you, he can create a unique piece all your own that features these beautiful little shell gems, these earth tones from water spirits.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
