Large, recent "Bodom" bead, yellow base with turquoise blue diamonds, 2 per bead, 32mm diameter with large 5mm perforation
The name Bodom has been applied to large, old, usually yellow, powderglass beads for decades, but this is a misnomer. The term Bodom actually applies only to beads belonging to the Queen Mother of the Ashanti, and her beads have not been seen by people knowledgeable about beads in a long time. According to Jamey Allen writing in “The Wild Beads of Africa” her collection likely contains a variety of beads including old powderglass Bodom beads, gold, and trade beads from Europe and the Islamic world.
The original old powderglass Bodom beads are distinguished by hot-worked glass designs applied to the outer surface of a large powderglass beads. Who made them and where is not known and the method seems to have been lost, but I don't think it will be long before you Ghanaians learn Venetian techniques and then we will see more and better imitations of the orginals.
I think it's actually a lot harder to create the surface patterns with powdered glass inside a mold than to apply trails of molten glass to the surface. However the designs made entirely of powederglass inevitably have fuzzy edges and that's what distinguished them from the antique Bodom beads.
The correct Krobo word for large focal beads, including, but not limited to powderglass beads, is “kpo”
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