If you could lay your hands on the booklet "Hair pipes in plains indian ornaments", by J.C. Ewers (Indian Reprints- Iroqrafts), you would have a ton of information. AN made them originally from the lip of the West Indian conch (Strombus gigas)...Some dealers in beads and the like still sell these. You can readily see a difference with bone hair pipes. The ones from shell have a special shine... The trick is to bore the shell from both sides and have the drilled out ends meet in the middle. Like quillwork and beadwork, the hairpipe evolved during time, about the same as wampum. So if you are looking to make a hairpipe ornament it is imperative to first determine when and where in history you want to use it... or it will be out of place like an AK 47 in Civil War... Eventually whites started to fabricate these hairpipes in bone, they became longer and cheaper and became a mass product... Hence the small early shell ornaments like earhangers, and the very late bone breastplates from the plains... Hopes this explanation hlps a bit...
