Dress Ornament
date: label: Accession Date
content: 27 Dec 1866
name: label: Collector
content: Capt. John W. Gunnison
label: Donor Name
content: Lt. Edward G. Beckwith
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "MADE OF PLAITED HAIR & BRASS PLATES. PART OF A HEAD-DRESS--MADE OF PLAITED BAND OF HUMAN HAIR, 1/2" BROAD, TO WHICH ARE SECURED, AT INTERVALS, EIGHT LARGE CIRCULAR BRASS DISKS AND SIX SMALL, FLAT BRASS BUTTONS. WORN PENDANT, BEHIND ATTACHED TO SCALP-LOCK. TA-A-WASH INDIANS. THIS IS NOT HUMAN HAIR; PROBABLY BUFFALO. ILLUSTRATED IN AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, VOL. 11, P. 420, 1909. S.R. 4/4/60. ILLUS.: HNDBK. N. AMER. IND., VOL. 11, GREAT BASIN, FIG. 12 RIGHT, PG. 351." Handbook caption identifies this as hair plates: a hair ornament of braided buffalo hair and brass plates and buttons. Attached to the wearer's own hair, it would have reached well below the waist. The plates are engraved with small angular tracks. Of the brass buttons, the uppermost button with the embossed eagle and wreath is a flat, 2-piece great coat button, of the type issued to regular army enlisted men and cavalry prior to 1839 (cf. Albert 1969). Sheets of brass and tin and finished hair plates were traded to Indians west of the Mississippi River by 1800, with brass and tin largely replaced by German silver after the 1860s (Feder 1962). This object, which was catalogued in 1866, is the oldest set of hair plates in any museum collection, per the Handbook caption.
label: Notes
content: Anthropology catalogue ledger book identifies this as "Grand River Tahawash Indians.". Tahawash is listed as Ta-a-wash on the catalogue card and has also been identified as Ute on the card. The locality is listed as Green River rather than Grand River on the card for an unknown reason. It may be speculated that Tahawash/Ta-a-wash is perhaps a variant of Taviwash/Tabeguache, i.e. Uncompahgre Ute? "Grand River" is the name applied to the Colorado River from its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park to its confluence with the Green River in Utah from about 1836 to 1921.
label: Notes
content: Illus. Fig. 79, p. 420 in Bushnell, David I. "The Various Uses of Buffalo Hair by the North American Indians." American Anthropologist, New Series, 11, no. 3 (1909): 401-25. http://www.jstor.org/stable/659627.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 19 May 2023
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Grand River (Colorado River), Utah (not certain) / Colorado (not certain), United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Ute (Nuche)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 66A00100
label: USNM Number
content: E1879-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Hair Ornament
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 94 cm