my grandfathers ant pile beads

[dirttracker]

My grandfather lived on the Great Divide. He passed the time killing rattle snakes and riding his horse all over the 4 corners. My mom said he would sift ant piles to find these.Not sure where he found them but he was a" 4 corners traveler" ..one of the beads appears to be a fossilized plant stem(?),some round rocks(any ideas what these are?), and what appears to be some painting pots?? The top left shoe looking one still has red dye when I look thru my 60x scope. The points are some of the crude stuff he found that's not in storage. He must have found the obsidian pieces broken because about half of them where glued back together.I will take pics of his collection soon and see if I cant share. If anyone has any insight Id love to learn.

 

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[rock]

The black artifact ones look like obsidian. Beads are very nice to.

 

[monsterrack]

The glass beads are fur era trade beads and nice ones at that. Oh and welcome to Tnet

 

[ShovelinDave]

They're called Crinoids

I don't normally post but this was a easy one.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/north-american-indian-artifacts/377598-crinoids-indian-beads.html

or just google indian beads fossils.

We find bunches of em in Indiana.

 

[Slingshot]

Some stones mined from ant hills are considered special and to be sacred. They hold magic properties when combined in certain amounts and used in various applications by several Western Tribes. The ants have been observed dragging these small stones to their ant hills, sometimes requiring the combined effort of several ants to move the stones. Lakota Medicine Men have 405 of these small stones mined from the ant hills in their gourd rattles, and they are considered very powerful objects. Cheers!!

 

[RGINN]

Interesting, Slingshot. Why were they considered sacred and what is the significance of 405?

 

[GatorBoy]

I'd like to hear more about this also I seem to remember the number 405 having something to do with a vision quest

 

[Slingshot]

The Lakota consider the stones as special because the ants expend tremendous amounts of energy and time in dragging them to their ant hills and placing them there. The 405 is part of the Lakota belief of 405 sacred trees that exist in their territory. I'm not Lakota, and hope I have those statements correct, but would appreciate any further comments from any Lakota on these boards. I picked that information up from the book LAME DEER SEEKER OF VISIONS by John (Fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, which I highly recommend, and have read several times myself. Being Cherokee I find all Native American culture very interesting and have studied it since I began to read. I think most people have a difficult time understanding our culture because they lack the contact with the natural world that the NA's had to have to survive, but it clicks with people who spend a lot of time outdoors in the wild versus those who live their lives out in highly populated areas. Cheers!!

 

[GatorBoy]

Cheers!

 

[Charl]

Bead on an Anthill: A Lakota Childhood:

https://books.google.com/books?id=m...OgBMBc#v=onepage&q=bead on an anthill&f=false

 

[dirttracker]

I cannot thank you all enough for the wealth of information. I've looked all over the internet to find the answer to these questions for quite some time. My grandfather hunted, fished and trapped his entire.He was on his horse a lot according to my mom which gave him lots of time to look at the ground for stuff. He was a true outdoorsman. He left me a lot of neat stuff and lots of great memories. I feel blessed to have found a great group of folks who are willing to share their knowledge with a complete stranger. TNet rocks!!

 

[quito]

The rocks in the second picture look similar to some unpolished Apache Tears I was given recently.

 

[dogteam]

Beautiful beads! The strings of white and red beads quite often come from California, the Sacramento area. Used to be be that you could screen them out of the dirt in some areas. The red ones are "green hearts" because of their dark green glass cores, and are older than the "white hearts" that were used by the Hudson's Bay Company around the turn of the century. My understanding is that they are from burial platforms in the hills east of Sacramento, tho I could be wrong there. But I have seen many strings just like that with a "near Sacramento" provenance. Have some myself.
ShovelinDave is right about the crinoid. I see some faceted "Blue Russians" there as well, they are my favorites. Again, a lot come from N. California up to Washington, and around the Columbia River.
THANK YOU all for the anthill stories, that's very cool, in all the years that I've collected beads, I haven't heard those.
Anyone here that can confirm? Ever found "anthill beads"?

 

[D.E.A.P.]

There are stories of pioneers who were crossing the planes to settle the west who found beads on anthills.

 

[rock]

I found a tiny point this year on a ant hill