The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 19, 2025
Hair-Pipe Necklace
early 1900s
Location: Not on view
Did You Know?
Among the most spectacular of Plains ornaments are men’s breastplates and women’s necklaces made of cylindrical beads.Description
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of the later 1800s are women’s necklaces and men’s breastplates made of so-called hair pipes, tubular beads originally made of shell.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 powwow regalia. (The term “hair pipe” may stem from Native Americans’ use of smaller tubular beads as hair ornaments.)- Purchased from Mrs. M.W. Olivenbaum.
- Native North America. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (December 4, 2021-December 4, 2022).Gallery 231 - Native North American Textile Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27, 2019-November 9, 2020).Gallery 231 - Native North American Textile Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26, 2014-July 29, 2015).
- {{cite web|title=Hair-Pipe Necklace|url=false|author=|year=early 1900s|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1932.50