1–2. PAWNEE SACRED PIPES. 3. CHEYENNE SUN-DANCE PIPE. 4. BLACKFOOT
PIPE. 5–7. CHEYENNE PIPES. 6–8. SIOUX PIPES. 9. PIPE TAMPER, SIOUX.
10. PIPE BAG, SIOUX.]
All Plains Indian pipes, with the exception of the straight bone pipes
previously noted, were provided with long, heavy, wooden stems. Some
tribes preferred tubular, others flat stems. In ancient times most of
the long pipe stems were probably split lengthwise, the smoke passage
excavated, and the two halves glued together. Some of the northern
and western tribes used a solid tubular stem which they pierced by an
ingenious method. They selected a young ash shoot which had a small
pith cavity in the center and caught a wood-boring grub. They made a
hole in one end of the shoot and inserted the grub, closing the opening
behind it. The shoot was then hung over a fire, and the grub, following
the pith as the line of least resistance, drilled a hole through the
shaft from end to end. When it emerged, it was captured and returned
to the place where it had been found with appropriate thanks. Split
tubular stems are rather unsatisfactory, as the halves are liable to
warp and separate. The broad, flat pipe-stem was probably invented to
give a wider surface for the glue and hence a firmer joint. It reached
its highest development among the Dakota, and they seem to have been
the inventors of the “puzzle stem,” a broad, flat stem pierced with
designs so that the smoke passage had to make several turns between
the pipe-bowl and mouth-piece. Pipe stems were often decorated with
elaborate wrappings which helped to hold the halves together.
A peculiar form of pipe, which may be a variant of the Sioux type, is
found in a limited area in the upper Mississippi valley. These pipes
usually have bases with long projecting spurs, but the bowl is smaller
than the stem hole and very low. It is surrounded by a broad, thin disk
sometimes as much as three and a half inches across. Some of these
“disk pipes” suggest the shallow-bowled pipes of the Asiatics, but the
form is certainly prehistoric. Pipes of this type are rare, and were
probably made for ceremonial use. One of the sacred pipes of the Omaha
is of this sort.
Although all the Mexican Indians were predominantly cigarette-smokers,
ancient clay pipes of elbow type have been found in the valley of
Mexico (Pl. IV, No. 5). They are not mentioned by any of the early
Spanish writers, but the specimens found are unquestionably of native
workmanship, and are probably prehistoric. The commonest form has a
bulb-shaped bowl and a rather thick stem flattened on the bottom, so
that the pipe will stand upright. The occurrence of elbow pipes in a
limited area, far from any other in which they were known, is difficult
to account for. Some of these pipes resemble forms in use in the
southeastern United States and lower Mississippi valley.
Elbow pipes were also used on the Northwest Coast and in Alaska, but
they were introduced into these regions after the discovery of America.
The Alaskan Eskimo apparently learned the practice of smoking from the
natives of Siberia, and their pipes are of Asiatic type, with very
small bowls (Pl. VI, No. 1). Their best pipes are made from walrus
tusks, and are often elaborately etched. The tusk is usually split
lengthwise and the halves joined in such a way that they can be taken
apart to obtain the juice distilled in smoking. The juice was mixed
with fungus ashes for chewing or with the smoking tobacco. Poorly made
pipes of Eskimo form were used by the Athapascan tribes of interior
Alaska, who were taught to smoke by the Eskimo.
The Indians of the Northwest Coast chewed tobacco in ancient times, but
did not smoke it. The more northern tribes may have adopted smoking
from Asia by way of the Eskimo, but their pipes show little resemblance
to the Asiatic forms, and they probably learned the practice from white
visitors. The natives of this region are expert carvers, and nearly all
their pipes are decorated with figures of men or totemic animals. Wood
is the favorite material (Pl. VI, No. 2), but bone and antler are also
used and some of the tribes make very elaborate pipes of black slate
(Pl. VI, No. 3). The slate pipes are much sought after by collectors,
and many of them seem to have been made for sale rather than use.
Pipes are mentioned among the goods given to the Indians in some of
the earliest English land-purchases, and they were regularly carried
by the white traders with the Indians. An English pipe-maker, Robert
Cotton, came to Virginia in 1608. The earliest trade pipes were made
of clay and seem to have been patterned after the small pipes used
for personal smoking by the coast tribes. Those made in the various
European countries showed minor differences, but were all of nearly the
same form. The later trade pipes show an increasing diversity in shape
and decoration, but the whites apparently did not attempt to make the
larger ceremonial forms. The most important contribution on the part
of the whites to the Indian tobacco complex was the tomahawk pipe.
This implement had a pipe-bowl above and a blade below, and could be
used either as a pipe or as a weapon. We do not know when or where it
originated, but it apparently did not come into general use in the
English Colonies before 1750. All the European nations equipped their
Indian allies with tomahawk pipes, and a number of types are recognized
by collectors. The pipe-bowl was nearly always of acorn shape, like
the pipe used by the northeastern Algonquians, but the blade varied
considerably. In general, the English and early American tomahawks had
straight-edged hatchet-blades, and the French ones had diamond-shaped
blades, like spear-heads. Spanish tomahawks had flaring blades with
curved edges, like mediæval battle-axes. There were a number of white
tomahawk-makers whose work differed in minor details; and fine inlaid,
chased, or inscribed tomahawks were sometimes made for presentation to
important chiefs.
An Indian warrior was rarely without his pipe and tobacco, and special
tobacco-bags were used by all the tribes east of the Rocky Mountains.
In early times, these bags were usually made from the skins of small
animals taken off whole. The Eastern Woodland tribes used a rather
small bag which was tied to the belt. The Plains tribes used a larger
bag, often made from a fawn skin, in which they carried both the pipe
and tobacco. In historic times the northern Plains Indians have used
long, flat rectangular bags decorated with beads or porcupine quills,
but this type apparently is not an ancient one (Pl. V, No. 10). Several
of the Plains tribes also had special boards on which the tobacco was
cut up and elaborate pipe tampers (Pl. V, No. 9). These accessories
were used mainly in ceremonial smoking. In Pawnee ceremonies the
pipe was always tamped with an arrow captured from the enemy. It was
forbidden to pack it with the fingers, as the gods might think that the
man who did so offered himself with the tobacco and take his life. The
tribes of the Northwest Coast crushed their tobacco in mortars. These
were usually made from whale vertebrae, and were often elaborately
carved.
Even if documentary evidence of the New World origin of tobacco were
lacking, its importance in the religious and ceremonial life of the
Indians would leave little doubt of the antiquity of its use among
them. Among all the tribes east of the Rocky Mountains tobacco was the
favorite offering to the supernatural powers, and among the Central
Algonquians no ceremony could take place without it. As a sacrifice
it might be burned as incense, cast into the air or on the ground, or
buried. There were sacred places at which every visitor left a tobacco
offering, and during storms it was thrown into lakes and rivers to
appease the under-water powers. Smoking was indulged in on all solemn
occasions, such as councils, and was a necessary part of most religious
ceremonies. In such ceremonial smoking the methods of picking up,
filling, and lighting the pipe were usually rigidly prescribed, and
the first smoke was offered to the spirits. The methods of passing and
holding the pipe were also prescribed and differed with the ceremony
and even with the personal taboos of the smokers. In the religious
ceremonies of the Hopi, the head chief was attended by an assistant
of nearly equal rank, who ceremonially lighted the pipe, and with
certain formalities and set words handed it to the chief, who blew the
smoke to the world quarters and over the altar as a preliminary to his
invocation.
The so-called medicine-bundles, collections of sacred objects around
which the religious life of many of the Central Algonquians and
Plains Tribes centered, often contained pipes which were smoked in
the ceremonies attending the opening of the bundle (Pl. V, Nos. 1–2).
In some cases the pipe itself seems to have been the most important
object, and the palladium of the Arapaho tribe is a straight pipe of
black stone. Among some of the eastern Siouan tribes each clan had its
sacred pipe which was used at namings and other clan ceremonies. The
stems of these pipes were covered with elaborate wrappings and other
ornaments which symbolized the various supernatural powers invoked in
the ceremonies, and the sanctity of the pipe lay in its stem rather
than its bowl.
The calumet, so often mentioned in early American records, was not a
pipe, but an elaborately decorated shaft, pierced like a pipe stem,
to which a pipe bowl was not necessarily attached. The name itself
is not of Indian origin, but is a Norman-French word meaning a reed
or tube. J. N. B. Hewitt says, “From the meager descriptions of the
calumet and its uses it would seem that it has a ceremonially symbolic
history independent of that of the pipe; and that when the pipe became
an altar, by its employment for burning sacrificial tobacco to the
gods, convenience and convention united the already highly symbolic
calumet shafts and the sacrificial tobacco altar, the pipe bowl;
hence it became one of the most profoundly sacred objects known to
the Indians of northern America. As the colors and other adornments
of the shaft represent symbolically various dominant gods of the
Indian pantheon, it follows that the symbolism of the calumet and
pipe represented a veritable executive council of the gods. Moreover,
in some of the elaborate ceremonies in which it was necessary to
portray this symbolism the employment of two shafts became necessary,
because the one with its colors and accessory adornments represented
the procreative male power and his aid, and was denominated the male,
the fatherhood of nature; and the other with its colors and necessary
adornments represented the reproductive female power and her aid, and
was denominated the female, the motherhood of nature.
“The calumet was employed by ambassadors and travelers as a passport;
it was used in ceremonies designed to conciliate foreign and hostile
nations and to conclude lasting peace; to ratify the alliance of
friendly tribes; to secure favorable weather for journeys; to bring
needed rain; and to attest contracts and treaties which could not
be violated without incurring the wrath of the gods. The use of the
calumet was inculcated by religious precept and example. A chant and a
dance have become known as the chant and dance of the calumet; together
they were employed as an invocation to one or more of the gods. By
naming in the chant the souls of those against whom war must be waged,
such persons were doomed to die at the hands of the person so naming
them. The dance and chant were rather in honor of the calumet than with
the calumet.
“The Omaha and cognate names for this dance and chant signify ‘to make
a sacred kinship,’ but not ‘to dance.’ This is a key to the esoteric
significance of the use of the calumet. The one for whom the dance
for the calumet was performed became thereby the adopted son of the
performer. One might ask another to dance the Calumet dance for him, or
one might offer to perform this dance for another, but in either case
the offer or invitation could be declined.
“Charlevoix (1721) says that if the calumet is offered and accepted it
is the custom to smoke in the calumet, and the engagements contracted
are held sacred and inviolable, in just so far as such human things
are inviolable. The Indians profess that the violation of such an
engagement never escapes just punishment. In the heat of battle, if
an adversary offer the calumet to his opponent and he accept it, the
weapons on both sides are at once laid down; but to accept or to
refuse the offer of the calumet is optional. There are calumets for
various kinds of public engagements, and when such bargains are made an
exchange of calumets is usual, in this manner rendering the contract or
bargain sacred.
“By smoking together in the calumet the contracting parties intend
to invoke the sun and the other gods as witnesses of the mutual
obligations assumed by the parties, and as a guaranty the one to the
other that they shall be fulfilled. This is accomplished by blowing the
smoke toward the sky, the four world quarters, and the earth, with a
suitable invocation.
“There were calumets for commerce and trade and for other social and
political purposes; but the most important were those designed for war
and those for peace and brotherhood. It was vitally necessary, however,
that they should be distinguishable at once, lest through ignorance
and inattention one should become the victim of treachery. The Indians
in general chose not or dared not to violate openly the faith attested
by the calumet, and sought to deceive an intended victim by the use
of a false calumet of peace in an endeavor to make the victim in some
measure responsible for the consequences. On one occasion a band of
Sioux, seeking to destroy some Indians and their protectors, a French
officer and his men, presented, in the guise of friendship, twelve
calumets, apparently of peace; but the officer, who was versed in
such matters and whose suspicion was aroused by the number offered,
consulted an astute Indian attached to his force, who caused him to see
that among the twelve one of the calumet shafts was not matted with
hair like the others, and that on the shaft was graven the figure of a
viper, coiled around it. The officer was made to understand that this
was the sign of covert treachery, thus frustrating the intended Sioux
plot.”
The use of the calumet was almost universal in the Mississippi valley
and among the Plains tribes, but in the Ohio and St. Lawrence valleys
and southward its use is not so definitely shown. The symbolism and
ritual of the calumet reached its highest development among the Pawnee
and neighboring Siouan tribes and the concept probably originated in
this region.
~R. Linton.~
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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Handbook of American Indians, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin
30. See headings:—Calumet, Pipes, Smoking, Tobacco.
~Hind~—The Canadian Red River, London, 1860.
~Lowie, R. H.~—The Tobacco Society of the Crow Indians.
Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History.
Vol. XXI, Pt. 2.
~Setchell, W. A.~—Aboriginal Tobaccos, American Anthropologist, Vol.
XXIII, No. 4, 1921.
~Wilson, G. L.~—Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians. University of
Minnesota, Studies in Social Science, No. 9.
[Illustration: PLATE VI.
1. PIPE MADE FROM WALRUS TUSK, ESKIMO. 2. WOODEN PIPE, HAIDA. 3. PIPE
OF BLACK SLATE, HAIDA.]