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Hair-Pipe Necklace
early 1900s
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, United States
When Europeans first arrived, Plains people wore pipe-shaped beads of shell, bird bone, or other materials in their hair. It may be for this reason that white travelers applied the term “hair pipes” to the pipe-shaped beads in such necklaces as this one. Natives eventually adopted ornaments made of European pipe-shaped beads, which, after about 1880, were machine-made from cow bones. Among the most spectacular of such ornaments are men’s breastplates and women’s necklaces that sometimes fell well below the knees.
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Details
- Title: Hair-Pipe Necklace
- Date Created: early 1900s
- Physical Dimensions: Overall: 236.2 cm (93 in.)
- Provenance: Purchased from Mrs. M.W. Olivenbaum.
- Type: Jewelry
- Rights: CC0
- External Link: https://clevelandart.org/art/1932.50
- Medium: Cow bone beads, glass beads, brass beads, silk ribbon, metal coin, native-tanned hide or rawhide stringing, vegetable-tanned hide separators
- Fun Fact: Among the most spectacular of Plains ornaments are men’s breastplates and women’s necklaces made of cylindrical beads.
- Department: Art of the Americas
- Culture: America, Native North American, Plains, Nakota (Yankton Sioux) people, early 20th century
- Credit Line: Educational Purchase Fund
- Collection: AA - Native North America
- Accession Number: 1932.50
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