Digital Documentation of Glass Bead Making, Use, and Meaning in Ile-Ife, Southwestern Nigeria

PI: Abidemi Babatunde Babalola | Collaborators: Adisa Ogunfolakan, Lesley Lababidi, and Ademola Adesiyan
Project ID: 2019LG01 | Location of Research: Ile-Ife, Nigeria | Host Institution: University of Cambridge

Ile-Ife and Bida are two pivotal cities in the history of Nigerian glass and glass bead making. While archaeology in Ile-Ife has demonstrated the antiquity of glass making and working dated to the 11th century, Bida has a history dating to the 18th or possibly 17th century connected to the migration of the Masaga people from North Africa. Archaeological evidence suggests glass making must have ceased in Ile-Ife over four centuries ago. Yet, the practice of glass beadmaking continues to the modern period. By the twentieth century, the practice had declined. In the 1970s, Omotosho Eluyemi documented about five families making glass beads; by the start of this project in 2019, only one family was still in the business of glass bead making. One family member retained the knowledge and would only produce by special order.

Thus, for Ile-Ife, the project aimed to digitally document the process of making glass beads through demonstrations by the process by the glass bead maker. It also focused on interviewing people who are connected to glass beadmaking, including makers or descendants of the makers, chiefs, priests, and priestesses, bead sellers, bead workers, and professionals (Museum curators).

Unlike Ile-Ife, Bida has a tradition of locally making glass called bikini. Bangles, beads, and other glass objects are made from bikini in Bida. Early European anthropologists, ethnographers, and craft enthusiasts documented the practice of glass and glass beadmaking in Bida, and the intensity of the glass bead industry has defined Bida as a craft city. By the mid-2000s, glass beadmaking relied entirely on recycled glass since the local glass industry had ceased. Only a few glass bead makers remained. In lieu of this, the project identified senior community members who were former glass makers or had at some point in their life participated in glass making. Therefore, a re-enactment programme was initiated, and the processes of both bikini making and glass working were digitally documented. The head of Masaga guild, community leaders, glass bead makers, and the community youths were also interviewed.

Methodology

The project incorporated audiovisual recording, imaging, one-on-one interview, and collection of oral history.  All interviews and oral histories were digitally documented by video. Photographs were also collected of selected actions, raw materials, sacrificial items, object collection, and finished objects.

Data was collected on a one-on-one basis with the interlocutors, and the interlocutors were visited multiple times before data collection to establish rapport. As Bida is a more remote ward of Ile-Ife, researchers committed to a two-week data collection intensive there. Before the start of every interview or interaction, the PI reiterated the objectives and scope of the project to the interlocutors and sought their verbal consent. Fieldwork unfolded between September 2019 and December 2021.

Knowledge-Holders

• Six traditional priests in Ile-Ife who use glass beads as a symbol of authority for their offices. These interviews shed light on the significance of beads, their symbolism, and the craft’s intersection with other traditions and public life.
• A bead worker, locally called Asindemade, whose products include crowns, staffs, footrests, bags/pouches, and badges, among other items. His segment documents the creation of a crown over several days.
• Members of Ajilesoro, active in the glass beadmaking tradition since the 1970s. The name ‘Ajilesoro’ means ‘one who wakes to use pointed iron,’ a supposed reference to the pointed irons used in perforating glass beads. Three family members granted interviews for the project which focused on their knowledge of glass bead making, sources, and types of raw materials. While the family held extensive inherited knowledge of the craft, none were active practitioners. The toolkit and unfinished projects of the family’s last bead maker, Alhaji Ashiru, nonetheless aided in understanding the chaine operatoire.
• Iya Pete, while not herself a bead maker, witnessed the craft in her husband’s family compound as a young wife married into the family of glass bead makers. She relayed memories of what she and her fellow wives witnessed there and showcased her collection of glass beads.
• Oladipo Agbogunleri descends from a maker in the same compound where Iya Pete once lived. He aided his parents with bead production in his childhood and made glass beads himself in the 1980s as part of Omotosho Eluyemi’s effort to revamp the craft in Ile-Ife.

Selected Assets

Acknowledgments

This project’s success is indebted to its collaborators, Adisa Ogunfolakan, Lesley Lababidi, and Ademola Adesiyan, as well as research assistants Boluwaji David Ajayi, Colin Bos, Omokolade Omigbule, and Ayobami Samuel Diya. The craftspeople and knowledge-holders of Ile-Ife and Bida are humbly thanked for sharing their memories and expertise for posterity.