Tony Monroe, Lakota
Bone Hair Pipe Hat Band
with Pipestone
HK Item #HB19

What is Hair Pipe?

Hair pipe refers to 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Hair pipe is thought to have been originally made of conch shell by southeastern Indians (Chickasaw, Creeks, and Cherokee).Some of the oldest shell hair pipes, discovered in Tennessee, are estimated to be from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 pipe 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 pipe was made of glass, brass, silver, horn and other materials.