STONE PIPES

Previous to the discovery of America, that strange custom of smoking was confined to the New World natives. There have been some vague references to inhaling of smoke by other ancient peoples elsewhere in the world. But these are still in the realm of doubt. Certain it is that the burning of tobacco, dried leaves, bark, etc., in stone, bone, clay, or copper receptacles was not known to any considerable number of men before Columbus set out upon his uncertain voyage, on an unknown sea.

There is an extensive literature dealing with pipes and smoking customs of America, and it is unfortunate that I am unable to produce more than a portion of what has been said by the early travelers, and later scholars and others, regarding this peculiar custom. However, there are two important publications accessible to all readers. The first was published by Mr. Joseph D. McGuire.^[9] Mr. McGuire illustrates his paper with two hundred and thirty-one figures and five plates. The other paper was written by Mr. George A. West and contains seventeen plates and two hundred and three figures.^[10] Mr. McGuire made a study of pipes and smoking customs throughout the United States; Mr. West, of the St. Lawrence basin and particularly Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Canada. These two publications will give readers abundant material for consideration, and because of their excellence, I have made this somewhat lengthy reference to them.

In addition to the monographs cited, there are numerous shorter articles scattered throughout various publications and reports. These will be found if readers refer to the Bibliography.

In the following pages, I follow the classifications made by Messrs. McGuire and West with very few changes. These must both stand as the best that have appeared on the subject up to the present time.

Since Mr. McGuire’s paper was published there have been large additions to pipe collections in the museums and private collections. As to the number of pipes in the Smithsonian, American Museum, Peabody Museum, and others, I do not know, but one might venture the opinion that each of these three institutions have at the least fifteen hundred or two thousand pipes scattered throughout the collections; and the smaller museums in proportion. Professor W. C. Mills informs me that there are two hundred and forty pipes in the exhibit under his charge at Columbus, comprising collections owned by the Ohio State University and the Ohio Archæological and Historical Society. They are divided as follows: Monitor, twenty-eight; effigy, forty; tubular, twenty-four; miscellaneous, one hundred and forty-eight. In the Andover collection there are about one hundred and seventy pipes.

There are two large private collections of pipes in America. Mr. John A. Beck of Pittsburg owns about eighteen hundred pipes of various kinds from the United States and Canada. Mr. George A. West reports that there are six hundred in his possession.

Pipes, from their very nature, were probably more highly prized among our aborigines than any other articles. The pipe was sacred, and it was not until Europeans, with their superior civilization, took up the smoking custom, that it became a habit and totally lost its original significance.

It is quite likely that pipes were more generally exchanged among tribes than other artifacts. Possibly, one should except copper, but I am not even sure of that. We find Northern forms South, Eastern types West, and a general indication that aboriginal barter or trade in pipes was extensive.

The Classification of Pipes

No one save Mr. J. D. McGuire has attempted to group these objects. In his classification, Mr. McGuire presented four plates in which he showed the distribution of fifteen types of pipes. I have followed his numbers, but instead of presenting a map, have named states or localities, from which these were taken.

1.

Curved-base mound pipe. Mississippi Valley, north of the Ohio and west of Pennsylvania. Also the Great Lakes basin.

2.

Heavy bird or animal pipe. South of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi.

3.

Tubular pipe. East of the Mississippi, and from central Ohio east. Throughout the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast.

4.

Iroquoian clay pipe. New England to New York; Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia.

5.

Iroquoian grotesque bird-pipe. The same region. Also eastern Canada.

6.

Iroquoian rectangular pipe. Eastern Canada and New York.

7.

Disc or jewsharp pipe. Mississippi Valley, central portion.

8.

Biconical pipe. Southern Mississippi Valley, east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio. Also Ohio and Michigan.

9.

Micmac, keel-base pipes. The St. Lawrence basin.

10.

Siouan and catlinite type. The Great Plains.

11.

Southern mound type. The South, east of the Mississippi, and north of Florida.

12.

Pueblo pipes. Southwest.

13.

Rectangular pipes, birds, and animals on bowls. Pennsylvania and Ohio.

14.

Monitor pipe. Ohio and Mississippi Valley, north of the mouth of the Ohio, and Wisconsin.

15.

Bowl and vase-shaped pipes. Kansas and entire eastern United States, north of Alabama and Georgia.

This table will serve as a beginning, but it is incomplete. Many pipes of the types mentioned by Mr. McGuire are found in other sections than those named by him.

The names of some pipes may not be familiar to all of my readers. I therefore repeat Mr. McGuire’s list of fifteen pipe-types, and state opposite each, the numbers of figures illustrating that particular type.

The fifteen types of pipes described by Mr. McGuire are illustrated in this chapter under the following figure numbers:—

1.

Curved-base mound pipe. Fig. 452.

2.

Heavy bird or animal pipe. Figs. 477 and 481.

3.

Tubular pipe. Figs. 428 and 446.

4.

Iroquoian clay pipe. Upper specimen, Fig. 465.

5.

Iroquoian grotesque bird-pipe. Fig. 470.

6.

Iroquoian rectangular pipe. Central specimen, Fig. 465.

7.

Disc or jewsharp pipe. Fig. 447.

8.

Biconical pipe. Right specimen, Fig. 489.

9.

Micmacs, keel-base pipes. One in Fig. 453; left specimen in Fig. 464.

10.

Siouan and catlinite type. Fig. 437.

11.

Southern mound type. Specimen K in Fig. 463.

12.

Pueblo pipes. (No figures presented, but they resemble those in Figs. 428, 446.)

13.

Rectangular pipes, birds and animals on bowls. Fig. 496, specimen in the lower left-hand corner.

14.

Monitor pipe. Figs. 451, 449.

15.

Bowl and vase-shaped pipes. Fig. 458, central specimen, Fig. 464.

Certain areas are characterized by particular forms of pipes, and in regions where the population was more dense, several types of pipes are usually found, thus indicating that they were taken from one region to another.

One fact stands out prominently with reference to these pipes, and it is that any one who is familiar with conditions under which pipes are found can distinguish the prehistoric from the modern in most instances. Of course there are exceptions. Many modern pipes show the marks of steel tools, whereas the ancient forms do not. Certain specimens appear to those who have done a great deal of field work as ancient, whereas others do not. This is not merely a matter of opinion. I have found it very difficult, during my lifetime, to make those observers who have no intimate knowledge of field conditions realize the importance of this statement. There is no convenient formula whereby one may explain to a skeptic, how one specimen appears old and another does not. I shall consider this subject at greater length in the Conclusions.

Various remarks offered here and there on the pages of this chapter may be taken to represent my conclusions as to pipes. I have not offered a summary at the end of the chapter, preferring to state pertinent observations, suggested by the figures illustrating pipes, as they occur.

Of the fifteen types named by Mr. McGuire, the tubular, rectangular, and slightly curved pipe (of the forms shown in Fig. 433), are most common and widespread in the United States. As some years have elapsed since Mr. McGuire’s paper was written, monitor pipes in numbers have been reported from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana.

The modern Sioux, Ojibwa, and Winnebago and other pipes between the years 1700 and 1850 are interesting by way of comparison. Mr. West^[11] wrote a few paragraphs concerning them, which I quote.

“No pipe was ever regarded by the American aborigine with greater reverence and respect than the calumet. It was used in the ratification of treaties and alliances; in the friendly reception of strangers; as a symbol in declaring war or peace, and afforded its bearer safe transport among savage tribes. Its acceptance sacredly sealed the terms of peace, and its refusal was regarded as a rejection of them.

“Calumets made of steatite, limestone, sandstone, and granite, are often found, but a large majority of them are made of catlinite, a compact clay slate, named after Mr. George Catlin, who lived for many years among the Indians, and to whom great credit is due for his many portraits and other paintings true to aboriginal life. The color of catlinite is usually cherry red, often mottled and shading into ash, grey, or black. This material was quarried by the Indians in several places in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri, and in Barron County, Wisconsin. Specimens of ‘pipestone’ are sometimes secured from the glacial drift. Pipes of catlinite are not necessarily of modern make. Examples have been found, over a wide area, in Indian mounds and graves. In 1880 a broken pipe of this material was found by Ole Rasmussen, in the town of Farmington, Waupaca County, while digging a well, eighteen or twenty feet below the surface. The material has been known, under different names, ever since the Discovery.

“Catlin, who in 1835 visited the pipestone quarries of Minnesota, had previously found catlinite ‘in the hands of the savages of every tribe, and nearly every individual in the tribe has his pipe made of it.’ After a visit to the famous quarries, Catlin concludes as follows: ‘From the very numerous marks of ancient and modern diggings or excavations, it would appear that this place has been for many centuries resorted to for the redstone; and from the great number of graves and remains of ancient fortifications in its vicinity, it would seem, as well as from their actual traditions, that the Indians have long held this place in high superstitious estimation; also it has been the resort of different tribes who have made their regular pilgrimages here to renew their pipes.’”^[12]

In Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as southern Ohio, where the population was dense, there are examples of nearly all the pipes except the Iroquois and the catlinite. The few of these found in that region must be set down as strays.

The study of several specimens illustrated by both McGuire and West and the comparison of the fifteen figures presented in “The Stone Age” will acquaint readers with the distribution of forms and types. The striking thing in all this, and it may be verified by inspection of any large mound collection, is that the types shown in Figs. 435, 437, 439, and 465 are usually surface finds and may be distinguished from specimens found in mounds and from various village-sites.

Mr. West has kindly permitted me to reproduce portions of his valuable paper on pipes, and I am sorry that space is insufficient to quote his descriptions of the numerous figures he has loaned me. Referring again to the Siouan pipes (Fig. 437), it requires no skill to distinguish these modern forms from the more ancient. Many of the pipes shown in that figure will apply to other living tribes as well as the Sioux.

One may suppose that the tubular pipe soon developed into other forms. That is, of course, taking it for granted that the tubular pipe is the first form. Modifications of the tube tending toward the rectangular are often met with, which seems to bear out this theory. Be that as it may, we have in Fig. 438 a pipe from Dr. Whelpley’s collection, oval in outline, curiously ornamented with circular depressions, and which is hardly of the tubular class, but seems to be a modification of the same. Instead of being perforated through its long diameter, the bowl is about an inch from the broad end. Such a pipe as this is of rare occurrence.

It will be seen from an inspection of either Mr. West’s or Mr. McGuire’s papers, as well as through a study of any museum collection, or of the various figures presented in this section, that pipes on which there are carvings or decorations, or pipes made in imitation of life-figures, are quite as frequently found as plain and unornamented pipes. Why so much skill should be employed on these pipes, whereas the flat surfaces of slate gorgets and ornaments could have been more easily decorated, is a problem. This may, however, be accounted for by the sacred significance accorded to the pipe by the savage, for it was used in all ceremonial performances, in the declaration of war and peace, and was among his most treasured possessions. It is very seldom that we find markings or tracings on any of these stone gorgets or ceremonial forms, yet on the pipes, as remarked above, ornamentation is the rule. All of this is significant to me, and I think that subsequently we shall be able to draw some valuable lessons from this peculiarity.

The Northern pipes, the pipes from the country west of the Mississippi, excepting of course the calumets, appear to be smaller as a rule than the Southern pipes, or the mound pipes. One might say that many of these were individual and sometimes emblematic pipes rather than council pipes. It must, however, not be forgotten that with the Indians of the Great Lakes region especially, all significance was attached to the stem and its ornamentation rather than to the bowl. Fig. 437 shows the well-known Siouan types of pipes of that people from the time of their migration to what is now known as Wisconsin. It is therefore possible that some of the pipes of this place are several centuries old, while others are distinctly of modern make.

There has been some discussion as to the part played by catlinite in aboriginal trade or exchange. Catlinite does not appear to be as old as other stones. It has been my theory that the catlinite quarry was of recent discovery. By recent, I mean within two or three thousand years or less. Catlinite pipes are frequently found in the mounds and graves of Wisconsin, but not in those of the South in any considerable numbers.

In fact their occurrence there is very rare, yet they are found in great numbers in modern graves, in village-sites where tribes have lived in the historic period. This in itself is significant.

Fig. 446 shows five tubular pipes from California, collection of Professor James A. Barr. These are all specialized forms, and somewhat different in the method of treatment, being highly polished and ornamented by rings carved in relief.

The disc pipe is placed in a class by itself by Mr. McGuire. We have six of these at Andover, all from graves at the mouth of the Wabash, southern Indiana. One of these is shown in Fig. 447. Mr. West remarks as follows regarding this type of pipe:—

“The disc pipe, in the writer’s opinion, is an old type, and was in use by the aborigines of this country long before the coming of the whites. Authorities, however, differ as to this conclusion. General Gates P. Thruston suggests that the stem holes of the disc pipe being funnel-shaped, it may safely be regarded as an old type.

“Mr. J. D. McGuire writes: ‘The shape is so suggestive of the jewsharp, an instrument used extensively in trade with the Indians, as to indicate that the pipe itself is modeled after the form of this primitive musical instrument, even though the file marks, so common on many of the pipes, are absent from those coming under the writer’s observation.’

“A careful study of the several forms of this type convinces the author that it was not modeled after the jewsharp. Of the twenty-eight examples in the author’s collection, when examined with a powerful glass, all exhibited innumerable marks and scratches, that could have been made by the use of a piece of sandstone or flake of flint. In no case were file marks found.

“Mr. McGuire states: ‘Finding them of catlinite so far from the quarries would indicate that they are of no great age.’ If Mr. McGuire’s conclusion is correct, aboriginal barter and trade could not have been carried on between distant tribes until within a comparatively recent date, an abundance of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.”^[13]

“Fig. 447, found at Baldwin’s Mills, Waupaca County, the largest handled disc pipe so far found in Wisconsin, is of beautiful dark red catlinite with pink flecks. Its bowl is five inches long, terminating in a handle shaped like the blade of a hatchet, with what would be the cutting edge ornamented with three notches. The disc is 3½ inches wide and so thin that the distance through from the face of the disk to the outer side of the bowl is but three fourths of an inch. The stem hole has the characteristic curve and its interior is nicely polished. Both stem and bowl holes appear to have been started with a stone drill and enlarged with a wooden drill used in conjunction with sand. Under a glass this specimen shows innumerable scratches, but none of these appear to have been made by the use of metal tools. The same can be said of eleven handled disc pipes in the author’s collection.” Mr. West has a record of one hundred and four disc pipes found in Wisconsin.

The fact that these disc pipes are frequently made of catlinite leads me to believe that they are not as old as other forms; yet there seems to be no evidence of their use after the advent of white man.

The pipe with the curved base and monitor pipes are closely related. These are found throughout the entire Mississippi Valley, and are especially numerous in Illinois, to West Virginia and from southern Wisconsin to southern Tennessee. Many beautiful specimens have been taken from mounds and graves, particularly from the mounds. In Figs. 449–53, I show five of these. Perhaps the most beautiful ones have been found in the mounds of the Scioto Valley, Ohio.

Just how this peculiar form originated, no man may know. It was the favorite among the prehistoric peoples. A few examples found in use among historic tribes are very poor imitations of the old forms, and cannot compare in workmanship and beauty of finish with such as are removed from the mounds of the Middle West and the South.

Beginning with Fig. 449 and continuing to Fig. 453, and from Fig. 471 through Fig. 500, I present a series of pipes, all of which are decorated either by incised lines or by likenesses of animals, birds, or human beings, carved in relief. These may be taken as typical of any large series of pipes in a public museum, and represent the height of pipe-making art.

As previously remarked, the decoration seems to be the essential thing in pipes. The idea of the maker was to portray something on the pipe or to have the pipe stand for more than a mere receptacle in which tobacco was smoked. No other conclusion is possible when we consider the high percentage of decorated and ornamented pipes, and the surprising number of pipes worked into effigies. Fig. 469 is a very clumsy pipe at best, and the decorations on it may not indicate age. Examples such as this are not wanting, and there are a great many in collections. Contrasted with this rough specimen is Fig. 455, which is also decorated but is worked less crudely.

The human sculpture of the priest on the altar at Palenque, so frequently illustrated, illustrates an individual either blowing or drawing smoke through a tube. The tube is ornamented with bands, and appears to be larger at one end. It is a straight and not a curved pipe. I have always thought that this interesting figure from ancient Palenque typified what the pipe meant to the more cultured American tribes. There is a vast difference between the use of the pipe as portrayed in that sculpture, and the degeneration of the smoking ceremony as it appears to-day among modern tribes. We have in this figure the ancient shaman in full regalia; the elaboration with which the slab is wrought, and the fact that it was part of the sacred altar at Palenque, are significant.

We have no such sculptures in the Mississippi Valley, but we have altar mounds in which effigy and monitor pipes were buried. I have never found a crude pipe in an altar mound and I do not think that either Squier and Davis or Professor Mills ever found an example of crude art in an altar mound. This refers to original interments, on the base-line—not to intrusive burials. Everything indicates that the pipes in use in pre-Columbian times were of two kinds, the small, individual pipes, and the large council pipes, or those made use of at important functions either religious or tribal, being characteristic. I have never observed the mark of any steel or iron tool on a mound pipe in the Ohio Valley.

Whether smoking was discovered through accident, or developed from the use of the straight tube in the hands of the priests, is something we may never be able to determine with accuracy.

While the effigy pipes required particular skill in their manufacture, yet some of the tubular, rectangular, and disc pipes, although unornamented, are wrought skillfully and brought to a high finish, and the surfaces polished until almost as smooth as glass.

I have often thought that a careful catalogue of all pipes in our large museums, with a detailed statement as to where each was found, would be of great value, and enable us to prepare accurate tables as to these and their significance and age. In this connection it is to be regretted that greater care has not been at all times exercised in securing complete data relative to aboriginal pipes and other artifacts deposited in museums and private collections, for without this a specimen however interesting is of little value in solving archæological problems.

The bird seems to have been the favorite sculpture, yet there are frequent portrayals of the frog. I present three of them, all of sandstone, in Figs. 485 and 486, and a beautiful one, full size, in a photogravure plate, Fig. 500, from the collection of Mr. F. P. Graves, Doe Run, Missouri.

Among the Ojibwa Indians, during the summer of 1909, I observed a number of stone pipes in use. An excellent opportunity was afforded to study such among these Indians, as I was on White Earth Reservation, Minnesota, for seventeen weeks, and came in contact with all the full blood Indians and many of the mixed bloods. Being frequently in council with these Indians, I observed their pipes with some care. Except rectangular pipes of Siouan types, which were inlaid with lead or silver, most of the pipes were exceedingly crude and far inferior in every way to the ancient forms. Few Indians owned inlaid pipes. The major part of all the pipes I observed were common egg-shaped bowls without stem which were fitted with the common cane or wooden stem, such as are sold in stores at a penny each. Others were rectangular and unornamented. Two in use by old medicine-men, one smoked by a Cree woman, and several others were purchased by me and placed in the Andover collection.

As these Ojibwa are all in possession of steel tools, one would suppose that their pipes would be well made. But on the contrary, the art of making pipes has degenerated among them.

While there are tubular pipes in California, they do not occur in great numbers, and, as has been remarked, other types of pipes are either very scarce or entirely absent.

It seems to me that among our American aborigines the finest art existed previous to contact with European civilization. The finest sculptures on exhibition in our museums come from sites which appear to be prehistoric. To him who is skeptical and does not believe these statements, I suggest that he inspect modern Iroquoian, Siouan, Ojibwa, and Cherokee pipes, and compare them with the ancient forms such as have been taken from mounds and graves in southern Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.