Sculptured Pipe.
Many tribes of Indians use herbs of various kinds to mix with tobacco to reduce its strength, as they are in the habit of exhaling the smoke from the nostrils, and not from the mouth. By the adoption of this means a much smaller quantity of tobacco suffices to produce the soothing influence on the nervous system so well known to votaries of the weed.
Longfellow, in his great Indian epic of the Song of Hiawatha, has portrayed with graphic power in pleasing verse the mysterious legends describing the birth or institution of the peace-pipe by Gitche Manito, "The Master of Life;" and a few extracts from "Hiawatha" may be interesting to illustrate the deep significance of the ideas which the Indian holds regarding his relations to the Great Spirit of the Universe, and of the esteem with which he views the peace-pipe, which in the words of Catlin "has shed its thrilling fumes over the land, and soothed the fury of the relentless savage."
Longfellow, in the opening of his poem, says:—
Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings,
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened;—
Listen to this simple story,
To the song of Hiawatha.
He then describes the making of the pipe from the great Red Pipe-Stone Quarry, as follows:—
"On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-Stone Quarry,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
He the Master of Life, descending,
On the red crags of the quarry
Stood erect, and called the nations,
Called the tribes of men together.
From his foot-prints flowed a river,
Leaped into the light of morning,
O'er the precipice plunging downward
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.
And the Spirit stooping earthward,
With his finger on the meadow
Traced a winding pathway for it,
Saying to it, 'Run in this way!'
"From the red stone of the quarry
With his hand he broke a fragment,
Moulded it into a pipe-head,
Shaped and fashioned it with figures;
From the margin of the river
Took a long reed for a pipe-stem,
With its dark green leaves upon it;
Filled the pipe with bark of willow;
With the bark of the red willow;
Breathed upon the neighboring forest,
Made its great boughs chafe together,
Till in flame they burst and kindled;
And erect upon the mountains,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe,
As a signal to the nations."