Quest for the Exotic Keeps Collector Going, From San Diego to Timbuktu

Incense weaves through the air in Bovis Bead Co. Though it is 1986, Gaslamp Quarter, inside the narrow shop exotic ancient cultures fairly hum in the beads and folk art Pierre Bovis has collected from all over the world.

Moroccan wedding hats (dark caps with long strands of twisted yarn) and masks from New Guinea and Africa cover high walls near the entrance. In glass cases on each side are antique Chinese puppets, Tuareg metal crosses from Nigeria (given by fathers to sons to ensure burial) and Egyptian mummy beads from 1500 BC.

To discover some of these rare artifacts, Bovis has been on adventures even Indiana Jones might envy. He has traveled to Nepal, Egypt, Kashmir, India, China, Australia, New Guinea and other places.

Once in the country of his destination, Bovis takes a horse, camel, jeep, boat or train--”whatever it takes”--to reach the remote areas where he meets with tribal or village leaders and barters for rare objects and beads.

Not long ago, to satisfy his passion for beads and primitive art, he traveled to the royal kingdom of Bhutan, high in the Himalayas. He hired a guide and set out by van as far as the road went, then the two went by horse to the village of Pahnhangj, not ordinarily open to foreigners (Bovis was able to obtain a permit).

“In this village,” he said, “they had probably seen only 50 whites in their lives. Your passport is kept as you go into the area, and if you have long hair it is cut or a beard is shaved.”

Bovis and the guide-interpreter went to the house of the man he would trade with.

“It is an all-day process,” he said, explaining that in such cultures trading is a social situation. “The bartering is done while drinking tea with butter. You don’t say, ‘I want two of this.’

“I was able to trade 25 large Kingman turquoise nuggets, a hunting knife, Levi’s and a digital watch for a bow and quiver with four arrows and for Mahla (prayer) beads made of conch shell and coral.

“Many members of the village came to the outside of the mud-and-wood adobe-like hut to listen. The people were all Tibetan Buddhists, and all carried prayer beads. The men wore dresses to their ankles and boots with pointed toes. I wore Western boots and jeans. When we came out, they all came up to touch me. They were stroking my hair and shirt. It was a very friendly gesture.”

On another journey, this time to Morocco, Bovis obtained the two wedding hats and a large amber-and-metal bead necklace after attending a wedding. The necklace, he said, is 50 to 100 years old and is tribal art, passed on in the female line. He had to wait a respectable time, of course, to trade for the items.

Another trip to Morocco is planned for September or October, in which Bovis and his wife, Shirley, will cross the Sahara to Timbuktu by camel caravan.

“It will take 40 days to cross,” he said, and “it’s not civilized. You have to dress in clothing like those who live in the desert, carry weapons because it is dangerous, and blacken your face. But that’s when you get the good stuff.

“They don’t want money there. Money doesn’t count. It’s strictly trade. I’ll take turquoise, watches, Levi’s and cowboy boots to trade. You have to realize, too, that there is no road, no electricity, no water.”

Collecting beads isn’t always so rough. Bovis has fashion beads (as opposed to collector beads) that he orders from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Italy, Japan, Germany and England. He is sole distributor for the United States, Canada and Mexico for the last French factory producing seed, crow and pony beads. Used in traditional American Indian beadwork, these beads were originally brought by traders and explorers from Europe.

Bovis is, through this factory, reproducing the complete color spectrum of the beads.

“There were 18 colors created from 1800 to 1900,” he said, “but none after World War I. We do eight sizes of each color, 500 kilos of each size.”

He conducts a large wholesale business in these beads, with trading posts and fashion designers. He ships two to three tons of beads every few months from this factory.

Except for the rarest beads, they are counted by the kilos--42,000 beads to a kilo--and there are hundreds of kilos in Bovis’ shop.

American Indian artifacts hang near the back of the shop. A buffalo skull is over the back door, with a beaded turtle and lizard container on each side, from the Cheyenne tribe.

“Those are containers from around 1890 which hold umbilical cords,” Bovis said. “The baby’s cord is cut and dried in the sun. When grown, the warrior wears the container on his belt, and the female keeps hers in her tepee. It is a sign of life and protection.”

In some areas, the custom is still followed, he said.

“I even had my own daughters’ umbilical cords saved, and dried, and had an Indian lady make containers for them,” he said.

“Ethnic people have not created these things for aesthetic reasons or adornment, but for mystical power. We buy things because they look pretty, but with these people, everything has significance, everything is sacred and sincere. You can’t look at beads or these items as Nordstrom items. There is a lot more involved than the public knows.

“We say ‘cute bead’--then wear it. The bead may be a significant and powerful item--to dispel dark spirits, or as a good luck charm.

“Though beads were not first created for adornment, they were the first adornment in the ancient world. Cowry shells and bones of prehistoric animals were used. A warrior took something of the animal he killed and hung it on himself.

“A bead is not just bead. You have to understand. This is very fascinating.

“People do invest in beads, beads you can’t get again. It is the rarity of beads that is important,” he said, showing a 2,000-year-old yellow and earth-toned bead he just acquired from Java. “This is the rarest bead in the store, worth over $1,000. If you wanted it, I wouldn’t sell it. It is the rarest of the rarest.”

He shows other blue-patterned beads from Timbuktu--some 700 years old--and a large strand of African chief’s beads.

“It’s not the age, it’s the rarity,” he said, holding up a strand from Africa. “These were only recently dug up and are 680 years old, but they are $5 a strand.”

Bovis’ passion for beads seems reflective of his life. The events are related in a clear pattern, as in a chain of beads.

When he was a boy in Nice, France, he already had a sense of direction about his future. Even at a young age, his interest in and fascination with American Indians were great.

“I said to my mother when I was small, ‘When I’m old, I’m leaving, I’m going to America.’ ”

Sure enough, at age 21, after studying architecture--as his father and grandfather had done before him--at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, he announced that he was indeed going to America.

In 1964, Bovis began his studies at UC Berkeley and within a few years had a master’s degree in anthropology, with a certificate in archeology and ethnology.

For a short time, he worked for the Lowie Museum in Berkeley and the Historical Society of Nevada, in Reno. He then opened Winona Trading Post in San Francisco, later adding a story in Novato, Marin County.

Bovis wrote two books, “American Indian and Eskimo Basketry” in 1969, and “Pine Ridge, 1890” in 1971, an account of the Battle of Wounded Knee (from diaries of an eyewitness, to which Bovis added a beginning and end, and acquired photographs). He also self-published “Trade Beads of the World.”

In 1971, the Bovis family moved to Santa Fe, N.M., transferred the trading post (which is still in Santa Fe) and opened Bovis Gallery of Primitive Art. He is a licensed appraiser of American Indian, Eskimo and primitive art.

It was in New Mexico that his interest in beads really developed.

“I realized that the seed beads, crow beads and pony beads used in Indian beadwork were originally traded to the Indians for fur by Europeans,” he said. “The Indians had used quill, stone, shell and bone beads originally. That caused my interest to break out even more.

“I was so fascinated by these beautiful items I wanted to study why these beads were there. So I got interested in trade beads. It is my goal in life--to be involved in primitive artwork and with beads.”

Nineteen months ago, for personal reasons, Bovis moved to San Diego to open his current shop.

Shirley Bovis, with an art background centered on antiques of New Mexico, has developed an interest in beads and helps out in the shop.

Bovis’ youngest daughter, Amy, almost 14, also is helping this summer, as she has for the last several years.

“Amy went to Egypt with me, and she is learning the business,” Bovis said. “For her age, she is very amazing.”

“I know a real bead from a fake bead,” Amy said.

Pierre and Shirley Bovis give classes in the shop on the craft of creating necklaces and earrings from beads.

“Executive ladies and men often come to the classes for mental therapy,” he said. “It’s relaxing. Housewives, those who make jewelry for a living, others from antique shops or movie companies or theaters also attend.

“People who come into the shop are a real cross-section--doctors, lawyers, architects, photographers, those involved in law enforcement, and people connected with the Old Globe--not hippies or flower children. You’d be surprised.”

Bovis’ shop seems as rare as some of his precious beads--a remnant of values from another place and time.

“If you want to make them (necklaces or earrings) in a hurry, don’t do it,” he said. “It takes time and practice. If you want to rush, just buy it. It takes time to be a collector, to love beads. Some people park in the loading zone and come in for a few beads.”

That’s fine with him, he said, but if they are genuinely interested, he will explain various beads.

When you talk to him, you realize this is not just a man who sells beads, this is maybe the bead king, though he would deny it.

“I don’t have time to know everything, but I read everything in print about beads, research continuously and visit every museum in this country and abroad that I can,” he said. “If I wanted to make money, I would go into computers, but you couldn’t pay me in gold to do that. I get excited especially by Roman beads, Egyptian beads--thousands of years old, and still gorgeous.

“We live in a world which will leave plastic and aluminum for future generations. What do we achieve? But these cultures left marble, stone, brass.

“I do it for the love of it. Knowing about beads is addictive.

“Each bead has a story, and that’s what I like.

“If these beads could only talk. . . . “