Travel Guide Kapélé

The making of Kapélé bead necklaces is a truly fascinating spectacle, and watching these goldsmiths of the earth at work, one cannot help but think that it is perhaps to his double vocation of farmer and craftsman (not to say artist) that the Senufo beadworker owes his creative genius, which masterfully illustrates the popular adage according to which "nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed". If it is a woman who originally found the use of this bead as a bearing for spinning cotton, it is men who make decorative beads.Manufacture of the pearls. How do these amazing magicians proceed? Very "simple": they start by collecting clay in the river bed which flows a few kilometers from the village. The clay is then sifted and worked with shea butter so that the skin does not cling or create imperfections on the bead. The pearls are pierced with a bamboo rod, then left to dry for 24 hours before being put in the "oven" (a hole dug in the ground where the pearls are placed before being covered with branches; the same technique of stewing is used in cooking to prepare meat and fish called "piqués"). The blackened beads are then ready to be painted. For the painting, once again, the pigments of the colors are in nature: the white is obtained from kaolin (also used to obtain the other colors that are fixed with a mixture of tree sap), while the green is composed of crushed leaves of kinkeliba, and the red of young teak shoots. Only the blue is not local and is made on site. For the brush, the craftsman uses tiny feathers of guinea fowl or chicken that he slides on the smooth surface of the bead planted on a porcupine spine, to which he gives a spinning motion after having previously wedged it between his two toes. The whole is then varnished and assembled into necklaces, bracelets and accessories. The size of the beads will vary according to the type of accessory or jewel made: necklaces, key rings, bracelets, etc. It takes about two days to make a necklace.Shopping. Right next to the pearl artisans, a small commercial stand set up under the apatam. A negotiated necklace/bracelet/clasp set is worth 2,500 FCFA if you take several.