Hair-Pipe Necklace
Unknown Artist
early 1900s
Medium
Cow-bone hair pipes, glass beads, brass beads, silk ribbon, metal coin, Native-tanned hide or rawhide stringing, vegetable-tanned hide separators
Dimensions
l. 236.2 cm
Classification
Jewelry
Department
Art of the Americas
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Educational Purchase Fund
Accession Number
1932.50
About this artwork
Among the most recognizable of Plains accouterments of the later 1800s are women’s necklaces and men’s breastplates made of so-called hair pipes, tubular beads originally made of shell. These prestigious chest ornaments became popular with the introduction of sturdier cow-bone pipes, nearly all manufactured by a mill in New Jersey and traded widely on the Plains. Bone pipes were made into many kinds of ornaments, the most elaborate being the necklaces and breastplates, today indispensable as pow...