Class Fourth.—OPOAGUNA.
The class of antique pipes. Smoking pipes, constitute a branch of Indian art, which called forth their ingenuity by carvings of various forms of steatite, serpentine, indurated clay, limestone, sandstone and other bodies. A very favorite material was the red sedimentary compact deposit, found on the high dividing ridge between the Missouri and Mississippi, called the Coteau du Prairie. Pipes were also made from clay, tempered with some siliceous or felspathique material, similar to that used in their ancient earthenware.
Opoaguna Algonquin.—Fig. 1. Am. Ant. Plate VIII.
The composition of this pipe is a compact brown clay, tempered with a fine siliceous matter, and dried in the sun, not baked in a potter’s oven. The exterior is stained black, and bears a certain gloss, not a glazing. The bowl has been formed by hand, and is rude. The principal point of skill is evinced in the twist ornamenting the exterior of the bowl. Locality, Genesee river valley.
Opoaguna Aztec. Fig. 3, [Plate VIII]. The material is a species of Terra Cotta, or reddish earthenware. Its fracture discloses very minute shining particles, which appear to be mica. Probably the ingredient used to temper the clay, was pounded granite. The features resemble, very strikingly, those of Mexico and central America, figured by Mr. Catherwood & Stephens. Onondaga county.
American Antiquities.—Plate VIII.
Opaguna Iberic. Fig. 1. [Plate IX]. Material, a slate coloured ware. Features, thin and sharp. Neck, acute in front, with an angular line extending from the chin downwards. Onondaga.
American Antiquities.—Plate IX.
Opoaguna Etruscan. Fig. 2. [Plate X]. Material similar to O. Aztec. Figure double headed—heads alike, placed back to back, like the Grecian deity Janus, connected by five parallel fillets,—bowl rudely formed, by hand. Onondaga.
American Antiquities.—Plate X.
Class Fifth.—MINACE.[72]
[72] From Meen, a berry; and ace, a diminutive; hence minas or minace, a bead, or an ornament for the neck.
Articles of this kind hold the relative character of modern beads or necklace ornaments. They are made of shells, bones, fissile minerals, sometimes pieces of calcareous or fissile crystal. The substitutes of the European period are glass and pastes.
Minace Alleghanic. Fig. 6, [Plate I]. This article was first disclosed on opening the Grave Creek mound, in the Ohio valley, in 1839, and received the false designation of “ivory.” It is figured and described in the first volume of the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, published at New-York in 1845, where its character is determined. It has often the appearance of having been formed of solid masses of horn. It is believed to be, however, in any case, a product of massy sea-shell. Decomposition gives its surface a dead white aspect and limy feel. The powder scraped from the surface effervesces in acids. It is generally, not uniformly, an exact circle, and resembles extremely a very thick horn buttonmould. It is characteristic of the orifice, that it appears to have been perforated with an instrument giving a spiral or circular line. This ancient ornament was also disclosed in my visit to the Beverly bone deposits of Canada in 1843. Its occurrence, in Onondaga, denotes the universality of the art, during the ante-European period.
Class Sixth.—PEÄGA.[73]
[73] From Peag, one of the sea-coast terms of the Algonquins, for wampum.
The ancient species of this article are numerous, and not exclusively confined to sea shells. The Indian cemeteries denote it in the form of bone and mineral.
Peäga Iowan. Fig. 7, Plate 2. The material in this species is the red pipe stone of the west, so much valued. It is perforated longitudinally, and was evidently worn about the neck and breast like the modern article of wampum.