This is a fabulous mid-to-third-quarter 19th Century beaded warrior hair extensions from the Crow of Montana, ex-St. Paul, Minn. Museum collection. These hair ornaments or extensions were worn by warrior men, attached to the forehead and worn over their head and down their neck and back. This example exhibits an Indian tanned hide browband section with petit 19th Century early glass trade seed beads in a geometric pattern sewn with sinew with colors of greasy white and cobalt. Below beadwork are hand cut fringes with a deep red ocher / ochre dye paint. There are ten thick bundles of horse tail or human hair strands with daubs of pine tree pitch in alternating bands running down the separate locks colored with vermillion to give the red coloring and possibly a white clay. Truly an exceptionally scarce Crow (Apsaalooke or Absaroka) hair ornament from the Indian Wars era. Provenance: This is from the ex-Steve and Aninta Scherer California collection, who acquired this at a St. Paul, Minnesota Museum deaccession auction. Hair extensions or ornaments were documented by the works of George Catlin in circa 1833 as shown in the image titled, “A Crow Warrior – He-Who-Jumps-Over-Everyone” which depicts dramatized flowing hair extensions running down the warriors back (image shown in the description for example). Our example is very similar to the example in “Bows, Arrows & Quivers of the American Frontier” by John Baldwin 1999 on page 3 which shows the Catlin images (004) as well as 005, “A Crow or Blackfoot style hair drop. CIRCA 1840” (a copy of the cover and the page in Baldwin’s book are shown for example). For additional examples see piece in the Musee McCord Museum, Apsaalooke (Crow/Absaroke) Man’s hair ornament/hair extensions from the Frank M. Covert and George Heye collections on display in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Bates, Craig, Bonnie Kahn and Benson Lanford, The Cheyenne/Arapaho Ledger Book from the Pamplin Collection, Dr. Robert Pamplin, Jr, publisher, 2003, fig. 29, p. 187, and plate ST, p. 242, for a pictographic drawing showing a Cheyenne warrior attacking a Crow who is wearing a hair extension. Edward S. Curtis photographed three Crow Indians on horseback wearing these ornaments in The North American Indian, vol. 4, plate 136, In Black Canyon (Canon) which has the caption mentioning the pieces as, “The picture illustrates the Apsaroke custom of wearing at the back of the head a band from which fall numerous strands of false hair ornamented at regular intervals with pellets of bright-colored gum." A scan of “The North American Indian The Complete Portfolios of Edward S. Curtis”1997 Taschen, Volume IV page 197 is shown for reference as well. As well as the example sold by Heritage Auction as A Crow Man’s Hari Extension circa 1885 in 2007 for $3,107.00. Measures overall 25-inches long, the beaded band is 7-inches wide.