Amazonian Seeds and Fruits Used in Indigenous Body Ornaments: A Literature Review

Ethnographic collections in Europe and the Americas hold numerous Indigenous body ornaments from the Amazon, often with little associated data on their geographical and cultural origin. Several of these objects contain plant seeds and fruits. Identification of the botanical material in those body ornaments could be a helpful tool in provenance research, also serving as reference for archaeobotanical and museum studies. A literature review on seed and fruit species documented as used as beads in body ornaments in the Amazon was conducted. Although the information was scattered among ethnobotanical, taxonomical, and anthropological sources, at least 224 species within 42 plant families were successfully retrieved from 54 publications. Fabaceae and Arecaceae were the most species-rich families, with 58 species supplying seed beads for the production of necklaces, bracelets, aprons, rosaries, etc. While the genera Astrocaryum , Attalea , and Ormosia yielded the highest number of species used, seeds of Coix lacryma-jobi and Cascabela thevetia were most often mentioned in the literature, probably because they are easily identifiable. We hope that our list of seed and fruit species will help to identify museum objects and archeological vestiges, and serve community projects engaged in producing material culture from seeds and fruits, while revitalizing and revaluing Indigenous knowledge.