By turning to Adair's "History of the North American Indians,"[65] we find the following statement:
They [the Indians] make beautiful stone pipes, and the Cherokees the best of any of the Indians, for their mountainous country contains many different sorts and colors of soils proper for such uses. They easily form them with their tomahawks, and afterwards finish them in any desired form with their knives, the pipes being of a very soft quality till they are smoked with and used with the fire, when they become quite hard. They are often a full span long, and the bowls are about half as long again as those of our English pipes. The fore part of each commonly runs out, with a sharp peak two or three fingers broad and a quarter of an inch thick.
Not only were pipes made of soapstone found in these mounds, but two or three were obtained precisely of the form mentioned by Adair, with the fore part running out in front of the bowl; and another of the same form has been found in a mound on the Kanawha, which is at least suggestive. Jones says:[66]
It has been more than hinted by at least one person whose statement is entitled to every belief, that among the Cherokees dwelling in the mountains there existed certain artists whose professed occupation was the manufacture of stone pipes, which were by them transported to the coast and there bartered away for articles of use and ornament foreign to and highly esteemed among the members of their own tribe.
This not only strengthens our conclusion, drawn from the presence of such pipes in the mounds alluded to, but may also assist in explaining the presence of the copper ornaments in them. The writer last quoted says:[67]
Copper implements are rarely found in Georgia. The present Adair says:[68] From the time we supplied them with our European ornaments they have used brass and silver ear-rings and finger-rings; the young warriors now frequently fasten bell-buttons or pieces of tinkling brass to their moccasins. From these facts I am inclined to believe that most of the copper used by them was obtained directly or indirectly from the whites, and hence subsequent to the discovery of America. But should this supposition be erroneous, the fact still remains that the Cherokees were in the habit of using just such ornaments as we find in these mounds.