Large turquoise and glass beads strung on a cotton string.

Plains Indians’ necklaces “were made of grass, seeds, shell beads, strings of fossil crinoids, animal claws, horns, antlers, and teeth, especially elk teeth” (Paterek 1994, 86). Trade beads were made and brought from Europe to trade with the Native Americans for gold, furs, and other precious materials. Many beads were made in Italy, often from glass. The Native Americans greatly valued these beads because the beads they made were arduously crafted one at a time and, therefore, were valuable and rare (Dubin 1999, 172). The Plains Indians also traded with Southwestern tribes, which is how they acquired the turquoise. To the Southwest tribes and even parts of Mexico, turquoise’s color symbolized “the blue of water and the green of growing vegetation, essential conditions for life” (Furst and Furst 1982, 37).