Beads
The name for 'bead' in the speech of Greenland is saparngaq ^[7], a word deriving from an old Inuit word. Beads of various kinds and sizes were worked into Greenland clothing. Whereas fur, leather, feathers, sinew, intestines and so on, were - and are - functional by their very nature for clothing, beads have usually had only one purpose, ornamentation for people and/or their clothing.

In Greenland the use of beads reached its temporary peak in the large and very colourful collar, (shoulder covering, yoke) worn as part of the kalaallisuut, the 'Sunday suit', which today constitutes the national women's costume in Greenland.

On the left RMV 4458-73a. On the right an old woman, Elika, with her daughter Thomasine Tarkisimat, and Medina Larsen, in festive dress. The colourful bead collar is a striking feature of their dress. (Photo: Gerti Nooter, 1967, nr. 67-3-58-26)

This collar, which now reaches beyond the wearer's elbows, originated in the modest decoration characterising women's everyday clothing in an earlier era. The fact that these collars are today so large and colourful, while in earlier times they were considerably smaller, narrower and more sober, is closely connected with the availability of beads.

Until long after the advent of the first Europeans at the end of the eighteenth century, Greenlanders made their own beads from materials obtainable from their own surroundings, for example bone, ivory, wood, or stone. ^[8] Bone and ivory beads were the most common. The Inuit also sawed and filed small angular beads from the vertebrae of the ammassak, ^[9] a small fish caught off the coast of East Greenland.

These were threaded on narrow leather thongs to wear as a necklace. ^[10] Another common kind of bead was made from the teeth ^[11] of game animals, small and large, such as rodents, seals, narwhals, polar bears, or even some kinds of whale. ^[12]

All these beads could be used for decorating clothing. Beads were - and still are - often sewn to places where mosaics of fur or leather mosaics were formerly applied. The beads are arranged in geometric patterns composed of different colours.

Woman from East Greenland, mending a bead collar (Photo: Cunera Buijs, 1985).

Beads were also formerly made into women's jewellery, such as earrings, and into men's chest amulets.

RMV 5905-50 (on the right)

It was only after the arrival of the first Europeans, and the Danish colonisation of Greenland, that the Inuit began to obtain a larger assortment of beads. The traditional materials continued in use, but beads made of glass and artificial materials also made their appearance. ^[13] In the beginning the whalers, and later the Danish Royal Greenland Trading Company, ^[14] also played a significant role in the distribution of these beads. Although these imported beads have never been cheap to buy, slowly but surely they have come to constitute a considerable part of the most colourful costume that women, throughout Greenland, wear on festive occasions - the national dress.

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