These are usually or often brown serpentine, inlaid with silver or gold (or gold-colored) wires. They were originally made to be fittings onto the handles of, or near the mouthpieces of hookahs (or whatever name you want to use for Middleastern water pipes). Note the large straight perforations.

Historically, one was published by Orchard in Beads and Beadwork of the American Indians (1929, p. 35 Figure 24). (P. 42 in the 1975 reprint.) This was said to have been found in Mississippi, and to be "unique." It is a curious error.

The actual identity of these beads was determined by my friend Elizabeth Harris, in the 1980s. But every once in a while these surface, and are not recognized—since they are not common beads.

Jamey