Indian Bead-Weaving Patterns. Its not a very big book, only 80 pages long. The last update was 1989. None of the pictures are in color, and all the diagrams are handwritten. There is a photograph of Horace, the author, in the front of the book. He's 78, tall and lean, dressed in buckskin in the Delaware Style at a Narragansett Tribal Gathering. It is still one of my favorite beading books, in part for the lack of detail and the lack of color. When you follow a pattern its like finding a treasure; you never know exactly what you are going to get until the beading is done.
In the back of the book there is an essay on beads that helps me to understand why I bead. It tells me that the Obiibwa name for seed beads is Manido Minensug, meaning "god's little berries". I also found out that the word bead comes from the Middle English word "bede" meaning to pray.
So when a woman on one of the Yahoo groups wanted to know what stitch was used in a picture of a necklace on Ruby's beadwork page I went to Horace's book and found the pattern for circle bar daisy chain, and stitched up a quick necklace. I thanked Horace for all the work that he did documenting and recreating the native beading patterns. And I thanked Ruby for her use of color and design when interpreting these traditional patterns you can see her necklace here labeled gold and silver necklace :http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/245633
