1. PIPE OF ANTELOPE BONE, CHEYENNE. 2–3. STEATITE PIPES, JOHNSON
COUNTY, ILLINOIS. 4–5. LARGE STEATITE PIPES, SOUTHEASTERN UNITED
STATES.]
The Blackfoot and Crow, nomadic tribes of the western Plains who raised
no food crops, cultivated small patches of tobacco for ceremonial use.
The ground was cleared of weeds and grass, and the seed planted in
holes about two inches deep, made with a pointed stick. The gardens
were weeded from time to time, but do not seem to have been regularly
cultivated. In both tribes tobacco culture was attended by elaborate
ceremonies. Among the Crow it was in the hands of a society which
also played an important part in the social life of the tribe. The
right to plant tobacco was considered a special privilege which could
be obtained only through a revelation from some supernatural being
or through adoption by a person who had received such a revelation.
The adopted person could, in turn, adopt others. Any person might
receive such a revelation, and the society was composed of a number
of divisions or chapters which derived their right to plant from
different revelations and differed in their songs and in details of
their ceremonies. Within the chapter there were certain rights, such
as that of mixing seed before planting, which could only be acquired
by purchase. Both men and women were eligible to membership, and the
society held assemblages for dancing throughout the year.
Some of the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains also cultivated tobacco,
although there is little information on their methods. On the Columbia
River and in northern California a stump or fallen log was burned, and
the tobacco seed scattered in the ashes.
Most of the North American Indians mixed their tobacco with other herbs
before smoking it. Among the more northern tribes, especially those who
did not raise tobacco themselves, this was done partly through motives
of economy, but the mixture was also designed to improve the flavor,
as in our own commercial blends. The favorite smoke of the tribes of
the eastern United States and Canada was called kinnikinnick, from an
Algonquian word meaning “that which is mixed.” Each tribe had its own
formula for this mixture, but it usually consisted of tobacco, sumac
leaves, and the inner bark of a species of dogwood. The bark and leaves
of a number of other plants were sometimes added or substituted. A
little oil was usually added to the mixture to bind the dust, which
would otherwise irritate the smoker’s throat and clog the pipe.
Kinnikinnick was milder than pure tobacco, and was preferred by most
Indians and by many white hunters and settlers. The Pueblo Indians of
the Southwest smoked various mixtures of tobacco and herbs in their
religious ceremonies. The greatest care was used in compounding these
ceremonial mixtures, and the plants were valued largely according to
the distance from which they came. The California Indians diluted their
tobacco with manzanita leaves or mixed it with Jamestown weed, itself a
powerful narcotic. The choicest smoking mixture of the ancient Mexicans
was made from tobacco and the gum of the liquidambar tree.
Three main methods of smoking were used by the American aborigines.
The natives of northern and central South America and the West
Indies were cigar smokers. The Central Americans and Mexicans were
predominantly cigarette smokers, although some of the ancient Mexicans
also used pipes. The North American Indians, with the exception of the
Pueblo tribes of the Southwest, were exclusively pipe-smokers. The
distribution of these three methods in America has strongly influenced
European smoking customs. The Mediterranean nations, who learned the
use of tobacco from cigar and cigarette using Indians, still prefer
to smoke it in these forms. The English, who came in contact with
the pipe-smoking Indians of the eastern United States are still
predominantly pipe-smokers. The custom of cigarette-smoking did not
become general in northern Europe and the United States until quite
recent times, and the vigorous opposition which it has met here seems
to be due quite as much to its novelty as to any proved injurious
effects.
Aboriginal cigars were practically identical with those now in use and
were smoked in the same way.
The aboriginal cigarette was made with a corn-husk wrapper and
contained much less tobacco than the modern commercial variety.
It is still in use throughout most of Mexico and Central America
and among the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern United States.
Archæological finds prove that the southwestern tribes smoked pipes
or reed cigarettes in ancient times, and the corn-husk cigarette may
have been introduced from Mexico during the early historic period.
In recent times the spread of the Peyote cult, which originated in
the southwestern Plains, has carried the corn-husk cigarette to many
northern tribes who were unfamiliar with it even a generation ago. The
Mexicans and Pueblo Indians also smoked reed cigarettes in ancient
times, and the Hopi form may be taken as typical. It consisted of a
small reed, not over two and a half inches long, packed with powdered
tobacco. A band of some fabric was usually bound around the reed,
leaving a flap hanging down by which it was held. Hundreds of the
charred butts of such cigarettes have been found in the prehistoric
ruins of the Southwest, but they are lacking in the lower archæological
levels, and the earliest inhabitants of the region were probably pipe
and not cigarette smokers.
The Dakota say that they did not use pipes in ancient times, but smoked
their tobacco in a hole in the ground. A similar method was used by
the Cree as a makeshift. Hind says, “I asked the Indian what he
would do for a smoke until he had finished the new pipe. He arose and
walking to the edge of the swamp cut four reeds, and joined some pieces
together. After he had made a hole through the joints, he gently pushed
one extremity in a slanting direction into the earth, which he had
previously made firm by pressure with his foot. He then cut out a small
hole in the clay, above the extremity of the reed, and molding it with
his fingers, laughingly said: ‘Now give me tobacco, and I will show you
how to smoke it.’ He then filled the hole with a mixture of tobacco and
bearberry, placed a live coal on the top, and stretching himself at
full length on the ground, with his chin supported by both hands, he
took the reed between his lips and enjoyed a long smoke.”
Indian pipes were of two main types,—straight pipes, in which the
tobacco cavity and stem were in the same plane, as in a modern cigar
holder, and elbow pipes, in which the bowl was inclined upward. The
straight pipe was known throughout practically the whole of America
north of Mexico, but was rare in the eastern United States. It was
used to the practical exclusion of all other forms in the southwestern
United States and on the Pacific coast. The elaborately decorated
smoking tubes of the Mexicans, mentioned by early Spanish writers,
may have been straight pipes, but many of them were probably cane
cigarettes. The elbow pipe was the dominant form in the eastern United
States and Great Plains, and also in eastern and southern South
America. It was used to a limited extent by the prehistoric Mexicans
and in southern California, and was not unknown in the Southwest. In
historic times it has come into use in British Columbia and Alaska,
regions in which tobacco was not originally smoked.
The earliest pipes which can be even approximately dated are those of
the Basket Makers, a people who lived in the southwestern United States
in ancient times. Their remains are found below those of the Cliff
Dwellers, and evidence along several lines indicates that they were
living in the region by the beginning of the Christian era and had been
absorbed or driven out by ~A.D.~ 1000. A number of their pipes have
been found. They are of the straight type and are usually quite small,
short, and heavy, with separate stems about two inches long (Pl. II,
No. 1). The bowls are made of stone, unbaked clay, or, rarely, wood;
and the stems of wood or bird-bone. The stems are attached with pitch.
Many of these pipes are heavily caked, and they were probably used
for personal as well as ceremonial smoking. It is impossible to tell
whether the Basket Makers used tobacco in these pipes and analyses of
the cake have yielded only negative results. If they did use tobacco,
it was probably the wild native species (_Nicotiana attenuata_).
The Cliff Dwellers and ancient Pueblo tribes who succeeded the Basket
Makers used straight pipes of a somewhat different type. They were
usually longer and more slender than the Basket Maker pipes with
somewhat thinner walls. The smaller examples, which were probably
intended for personal use, seem to have had separate stems (Plate II,
No. 2). Large tubular pipes, shaped like half a cigar, are also found,
but were probably used only in ceremonial smoking. They are made of
clay or soft stone and often show beautiful workmanship (Pl. II, No.
3). Roughly made clay pipes of this sort, popularly known as “cloud
blowers,” are still used by the Hopi in their ceremonies.
The California Indians, with the exception of the Diegueño, also used
the straight pipe, and the form is probably as ancient there as in
the Southwest. There were various tribal and regional differences in
the shape and material. Wooden pipes without separate stems were of
nearly universal occurrence, and were probably the earliest form. In
some regions they were carved and inlaid with abalone shell. Pipes
of unbaked clay with wooden stems were used in a few localities (Pl.
II, No. 4), but the finest California pipes were made of steatite
or soapstone (Pl. II, No. 5). They were usually provided with short
mouthpieces of wood or bone. The Hupa of northern California used a
pipe with a small steatite bowl accurately fitted into a cavity in the
end of a long tapering wooden stem (Pl. II, No. 6).
Several of the tribes of the Great Plains used straight pipes in
ancient times. These pipes were made from the leg bone of an antelope
wrapped with sinew at the bowl end (Pl. III, No. 1). In some cases the
whole pipe was covered with rawhide or membrane. The Arapaho say that
they used this form exclusively in early times, and the sacred pipe of
the tribe is straight with a black stone bowl and a long tubular wooden
stem. A pipe of the same form, but with a red stone bowl, was used by
the Cheyenne in their Sun Dance, and the Crow have made straight stone
pipe bowls until quite recent times (Pl. V, No. 3).
A number of straight pipes of stone and clay have been found in the
eastern United States, but there seems to be no record of their use
by the historic tribes. The examples shown (Pl. III, Nos. 2–3) are
from Johnson County, Illinois. They are made from close-grained
greenish brown steatite, a material soft enough to be easily worked
with flint tools, but capable of taking a fine polish. The large size
and excellent finish of these pipes indicates that they were intended
for ceremonial rather than personal use. The bird pipe is eight and
a quarter inches long, with an internal bowl diameter of one and
a quarter inches, and is an unusually good example of aboriginal
sculpture. The eye sockets are roughly finished, and were probably
inlaid with some other material.
Straight pipes are easier to make than elbow pipes, but have certain
disadvantages. They have to be directed upward in smoking to keep the
tobacco from falling out of the bowl, and the tobacco dust and juices
are drawn down into the stem with results familiar to all smokers. To
prevent this, many tribes are said to have put a pebble or pellet of
clay in the bottom of the bowl before filling it. Even a slight angle
between the bowl and stem is a great convenience to the smoker, and
this improvement once hit upon, perhaps through faulty workmanship, the
development of the elbow pipe was easy. Pipes from different parts of
North America show all degrees of bowl inclination from the straight
tube to a right angle, and there can be little doubt that the main
evolution of the elbow pipe was along this line. In the Mississippi
Valley and Great Plains there are, however, certain types of elbow pipe
which could hardly have been developed in this way. In these the bowl
rests upon a base which extends out for some distance in front of it.
From various archæological finds it seems probable that these types
were developed from pipes which had a corn-cob bowl pierced through the
base with a reed stem.
North American elbow pipes have never been satisfactorily classified,
but about twenty types are distinguishable. Only the more important
of these can be mentioned here. Most of the types show a more or
less continuous geographical distribution, but there was no tribe or
region in which all the pipes were of the same type. The Chippewa
distinguished four types of pipe which were in simultaneous use among
them. These were—(1) Women’s pipes, which were small, with short
stems and little decoration. (2) Men’s pipes for ordinary smoking,
which were somewhat larger and better made than the women’s pipes, but
were also small. (3) Personal pipes of famous warriors, which were
larger than the ordinary pipes, with heavy decorated stems sometimes
as much as five feet long. (4) Chief’s pipes and ceremonial pipes,
which were large, with long stems like the warrior’s pipes, and were
elaborately decorated. Even the pipes for ordinary smoking were highly
valued and would often be carved and decorated in the owner’s spare
time. Stone for pipe-making, and even finished pipes, seem to have been
bartered from tribe to tribe in ancient times.
The Indians made their pipes from many materials. Most of the
prehistoric pipes are of stone or clay, but early records prove that
wood, horn, and bone were also used by the tribes of the Atlantic Coast
at the time of their first contact with Europeans. Almost all the
pipes made of these perishable materials have been destroyed, but they
were probably of the same types as the stone and clay pipes from this
region. Clay pipes were in at least occasional use throughout the whole
of North America east of the Great Plains, but the finest examples
are found in the old Iroquois territory in New York State and Canada,
and in the southeastern United States. Stone pipes are found from the
Atlantic coast to the Rocky Mountains and seem to have been preferred
by all those tribes among whom pottery making was poorly developed.
Large numbers of Iroquoian clay pipes have been found in old cemeteries
and village sites, and their form makes them easily distinguishable in
collections. They are made of fine hard-burned clay and have a graceful
trumpet shape, with rather long slender bowls and short stems (Pl. IV,
No. 3). The upper part of the bowl is often encircled by a band of
incised designs or modeled into a human face or bird’s head. They
were not provided with separate stems.
[Illustration: PLATE IV.