Breast Ornament
date: label: Accession Date
content: 14 Sep 1898
name: label: Collector
content: Emile Granier
label: Donor Name
content: Emile Granier
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "STRAND OF CHINA BEADS IMITATING SHELL BEADS SPACED BETWEEN LEATHER STRIPS. IN THE MIDDLE A CONCH SHELL DISK. TIED TO THE BREAST ORNAMENT ARE HAIR LOCKS. INVENTORIED 1975. ILLUS.: HNDBK. N. AMER. IND., VOL. 11, GREAT BASIN, FIG. 4C, PG. 312." Handbook caption identifies: "Breast ornament attributed to Dick Washakie, son of Washakie. Ten strands of white ceramic beads are strung between side bars of commercial harness leather. The free ends of the thongs stringing the beads were passed through the side bars, knotted, split, and left as decorative fringes. Hair (mostly horsehair, some human) wrapped in cloth, rabbit fur, or brass barrel beads was hung from the lateral fringes. Attached to the center of the bead strings is a shell moon, with a brass barrel bead at the center tie. Above this is a shell hairpipe 15.5 cm long, and below, a stone projectile point. Both the hairpipe and the moon are probably Strombus gigas, a West Indian conch, popular trade items throughout the 19th century. The shell hairpipe was replaced by cheaper, more durable, bone hairpipes in the 1880s (Ewers 1957). The point is of the Elko Side-notched type, dated 2000 B. C. - A.D. 1000. Beaded breast ornaments of this style were characteristic of the Eastern and Northern Shoshone, Nez Perce, and other northwestern tribes until about 1900, when they were in large part replaced by Plains hairpipe breastplates."
label: Notes
content: A small metal pair of tweezers is tied onto this breast ornament. Tweezers are marked "Dick Washakie's depilator".
label: Record Last Modified
content: 25 Aug 2023
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Wyoming, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Shoshone
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 034005
label: USNM Number
content: E200934-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Breast Plate / Tweezers