Breaking ground. Breaking silence. The history of New Yorks African burial ground- History of Waist Beads
On a spring day in 1992, the archaeologists were still in the process of excavating burials. In the midst of their work, the crew spotted a large burial pit, its dirt disturbed, like the other burials, by the recent constructions.
But there was something different about the yellow, claylike soil around burial #340. They decided to search for a coffin lid and carefully began to scrap the hard to remove dirt. Slowly a gray scam begun to appear. Now the archaeologists would have to be extremely careful, as they delicately scraped around it.
When the crew detected skeletal remains, they realized that the stained earth was all that was left of the coffin lid. The lid itself had melded into the soil. Like many of the others in the burial ground, this burial faced the east.
Once the dirt was entirely removed, the scientists observed tiny roundish objects around the skeleton’s thigh and hip area. Except for several shroud pins and a clay pipe, no other articles were found. The archaeologists realized that the round objects might be beads. Two burials of children had been found with beads in earlier excavations. One of them had twenty-two small “black beads” around the waist and the other around the neck. The remains and the articles in Burial #340 were taken to the lab for analysis. After careful study, the archaeologist confirmed what they had first suspected; the objects were beads. One hundred forty-five beads were found in seven burials. Burial #340 yielded 111 beads; the largest amount obtained so far from a single grave.
After the archaeologists carefully analyzed the beads and researched their use among Africans and people of African descent, they then had some idea about the life and culture of this individual.
The forensic specialist reported that Burial #340 was a woman between twenty-five and thirty years old when she died. And the shape of some of the woman’s teeth had been altered. One incisor tooth had been filed in a shape resembling an hourglass. Another incisor had been filed in a shape resembling an hourglass. Another incisor had been filed to a point. Her beads and filed teeth indicate that she was born in Africa and might have come from Senegal- Gambia region of West Africa, where some people still file teeth to indicate ethnic affiliation.
Now in our century, this woman whose name we will never know whose history no one wrote, this woman who may have been part of the cargo of slave ship, her value calculated along with the price of rum, sugar, and firearms, this woman viewed by those who bought and sold her as a heathen African slave, would no longer be lost in time. She finally has a voice and can tell at least part of the story of africans in early New York City.
Burial #340 was one of the most significant discoveries since the excavations begun. A strand of about 111 waist beads lay around her hips. No burial ever been found in North America with beads lay around her hips used in this way; however, waist beads have been worn in Africa for centuries. Some of the beads were made of glass and one bead was amber. Small blue and white beads also found near her remains had probably been wrapped around her wrists.
Beads were still and are still important and powerful symbols in many West African cultures and in other cultures in other cultures around the world. They have been used for exchange (as money) and to denote the important passages of life such as birth, marriage, and death. They were also used to keep the wearer from harm in life and to help the individual make the journey afterlife.
The number of valuable beads she buried with (cowries, shells and amber) and the waist beads, which in in certain African societies indicate the importance of the wearer, suggest that this woman may have been a respected person in the African community. She might have been the daughter of a king or a chief, kidnapped and caught up in the slave trade, or she might have had knowledge of the remedies and healing.
Perhaps she had been honored by other blacks, both slave and free, because she was a direct link to their past. People like her could replenish memories of a fading African past and disappearing African traditions. Her presence may have been a constant reminder of what had been lost to slavery.
Of course, there is no way to tell what she experienced after her arrival, whom she was enslaved to, or what kind of work she was forced to do. Future analysis of her skeletal remains may show stress fractures, indicating certain types of labor.
What we do not know is that she carried her African culture into captivity with her. She came, as did so many others. With religious and cultural traditions that did not die in the holds of slave ships, nor disappear in the houses of bondage. There is no way to know exactly the circumstances this woman’s death.
She may have died shortly after experiencing the terror of leaving Africa, the middle passage across the Atlantic, and arrival and enslavement in a strange place far from home. However, the people who buried her understood the meaning of her life and what it represented. She had been buried with care and respect.
Source;Breaking ground. Breaking silence. The history of New Yorks African burial ground. By Joyce Hansen & Gary McGOWAN
Burial #340