Beadwomen - A Lesson

My Grandmother taught me how to bead. "Now she said you put nine beads on. Nine of those white beads."

I think I was eight years old, that was the toughest job I ever did, trying to string up nine beads. I don't know how many times I gave up. I think I gave up every bead. She said keep at it. She got hers done real quick. I finally got nine beads on this one strand.

Then when she was talking to me that night, she said, Granddaughter, you have to make one mistake in there. She said, in everything you make, you make one mistake.

I was thinking, gee, how am I going to make a mistake. She said, that is a way of life, that's what we believe in. Everything is not perfect. So when you make something, when you do something, you're suppose to make one little mistake.

So sometimes I would put a wrong colored bed in one of my designs. I did that and then I was asking her, how does that look and she said that looks good. Cause she knew what I did, and she approved of it, so I just left it.

The story above was transcribed from a video on Native American women. I apologize to all for not having documented my source, I would certainly provide it here if I had it. I copied this story for two reasons; first because I feel it teaches a valuable lesson that we would all do well to learn. Instead of pushing our children to perfection that most cannot possibly achieve, teach them to accept imperfection as a matter of fact, something to be embraced as just a part of life. The second reason I saved this story is because I remember as a little girl my aunt telling me about items she had purchased in her travels. She told us that you could always tell real "Indian" beading from non-Indian reproductions because the real beading would always have one bead out of place and the reproduction would be perfect. I now understand why.