[NATIVE AMERICAN STYLE] Modern Bear Claw Necklace with Nineteen Claws

Bear Claw Necklace made in the Plains Tradition. Bear claws, fur, hide, and beads.

An imposing necklace composed of nineteen real bear claws arranged around a substantial fur-covered collar. The claws project outward in a broad, graduated arc, their varying lengths and curvatures giving the perimeter an irregular, sculptural character. Pale hide secures their bases, while an accompanying strand of yellow beads, ornamented with intersecting colored lines and interspersed with elongated white beads, follows the outer circumference. The warm brown and gray fur provides a textured contrast to the smooth surfaces of the claws.

Bear claw necklaces have a well-documented place in nineteenth-century adornment among several Plains and neighboring Native communities. Their appearance in early portrait photography offers particularly useful historical context. Thomas Martin Easterly’s 1847 daguerreotype of Bum-bemsue, preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, records a necklace combining bear claws, otter fur, and glass trade beads. John H. Fitzgibbon’s 1853 portrait of the Kansa leader Kno-Shr likewise shows a substantial bear claw necklace worn prominently across the chest.

The example offered here recalls that documented combination of projecting claws, a fur foundation, and bead ornament. Offered as a contemporary homage to the form, it has a substantial presence for display.