Bone Bear Necklace BBN359

The Grizzli Collection

Garris was an attorney in New York City, and was once an assistant district attorney for Queens County. It was during her legal career that she was nicknamed "Grizzli" by her colleagues for her relentless aggression in the courtroom going after white collar criminals; her late husband, David, called her "Grizzli" ever since they met, and her license plate also read"Grizzli". When Garris attended law school, she met her best friend Gila, who moved to Tucson, and it was on trips to Arizona visiting Gila that Garris fell in love with Native American jewelry, especially pieces with birds or turtles (given her nickname). David was half Cherokee, and even though Garris was very much a Jewish New Yorker without any personal connection to tribal culture or artwork, her love for David amplified her interest in Native American symbolism. Over the years, she amassed an extensive collection of southwest jewelry. We are pleased to find new homes for Grizzli's collection. Many pieces, although beautiful, are not Native American made, and that's why we are selling them here in the Bargain Barn.

Native American Bear Symbolism

Bear is considered the most powerful of all of the animals and is one of the most popular subjects of Native American carvers. Bear is a spiritual guide and represents strength and self-knowledge. Bear has supernatural powers and great healing powers. Bear is a symbol deliberate action, introspection, soul and insight for the past and the future. The Bear is the guardian of the West an is one of the animals of the Six Directions. Bears are the main figure in the Mountain Way, an important Navajo ceremony. Bear claws are a traditional adornment to pendants and bracelets.

Bone Hair Pipe Beads

Hair pipe beads are long hollow beads usually, but not always, having tapered ends. The term "hair pipe" was likely coined by early white traders who saw indians wearing the long beads as hair ornaments.

Hair pipes are thought to have been originally made of conch shell by southeastern Indians (Chickasaw, Creeks, and Cherokee).Some of the oldest shell hair pipes, discovered in Tennessee, are estimated to be from 4,000 years ago.

Hair pipes of bone appeared around the late 1800s when white traders brought corn cob pipes to the Ponca Indians of the midwest - the Poncas found that the bone pipe stems made excellent hair pipes. Later, hair pipes were made of glass, brass, silver, horn and other materials.

Our Rescue Mission
of Native American Indian Jewelry and Artifacts

We are in the vintage Native American jewelry rescue business and are passionate about finding new homes for used and vintage jewelry and artifacts. That's why we purchase Native American pieces from estates, inheritances, collection downsizing and New Old Stock (NOS) inventory from closed stores.

Often people contact us after taking a box of Native American jewelry to their local pawn shop and find that a pawn shop is mainly interested in melt value of the metals and not in preserving the beautiful historic pieces. To hear that people have considered selling these treasures for melt value makes us truly sad.

Melt value is usually far below what we would offer for the jewelry. Yet we can't pay retail price for items because of the time and cost involved in finding new homes for them. We have to research, often repair and restore the jewelry, photograph and list each item on our website, and sometimes hold pieces in inventory for years until the right buyer comes along.

Items that are Mexican go in our Mexican Shop. Other items not Native American made or that we cannot verify as such go into our Bargain Barn where you can find some real treasures at low prices.

We hope you'll find something special in our vintage shop that will complete yet another circle of our jewelry re-homing mission.

Lot of Two Necklaces
Bear and Bone Hairpipe

HK Item #BBN359

The Grizzli Collection

Native American Bear Symbolism

Bone Hair Pipe Beads

Our Rescue Mission
of Native American Indian Jewelry and Artifacts

Lot of Two Necklaces Bear and Bone Hairpipe

HK Item #BBN359

The Grizzli Collection

Native American Bear Symbolism

Bone Hair Pipe Beads

Our Rescue Missionof Native American Indian Jewelry and Artifacts

Lot of Two Necklaces
Bear and Bone Hairpipe

Our Rescue Mission
of Native American Indian Jewelry and Artifacts