Hair pipe
Elongated bead popular with American Indians
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A hair pipe is a term for an elongated bead, more than 1.5 inches (38 mm) long, which are popular with American Indians, particularly from the Great Plains and Northwest Plateau.
History
In 1878, Joseph H. Sherburne became a trader to the Ponca people. The Ponca purchased great quantities of corn cob pipes from Sherburne, but only used the stem of the pipes as beads. White Eagle showed the trader a necklace made of the pipestems and asked if they could be ordered in bulk. Sherburne contacted S. A. Frost in New York about producing tubular bone beads and within a year, he had enough hair pipe beads to sell to the Ponca as well as other Indian traders.[1]
