A somewhat different device for the same purpose appears in the Bureau collection. It is illustrated in [figure 153] (of fine sandstone); there was another part to correspond with that shown. The specimen is from Monongahela, Pennsylvania.
Tubes.
As the use of stone tubes by the Indians has given rise to considerable discussion, the following references to the various ways in which they have been employed may help to settle it.
Schoolcraft observed that the Dakota Indians used a horn tube in bleeding; one end was set over the cut, and the other vigorously sucked.[113] Powers says that the Klamath Indians use tubes for smoking,[114] while H. H. Bancroft says that the Acaxees of Mexico employ “blowing through a hollow tube” for the cure of disease,[115] and also that the Indians of southern California inhale smoke of certain herbs through a tube to produce intoxication.[116] According to C. C. Jones the Florida and Virginia Indians used reeds in treating diseases by sucking or blowing through them, and also used them in cauterizing; and he observes that the Indians of Lower California employed similar processes, using stone tubes[117] instead of reeds. Hoffman illustrates the removal of disease through the agency of a tube of bone by a Jĕs´sakīd´ or medicine-man of the Ojibwa.[118] Read calls attention to the fact that the old Spanish writers describe a forked wooden tube, the prongs being inserted in the nostrils, while the other end was held over smoldering herbs, and suggests that the Indians may have used stone tubes in the same way.[119]
Fig. 153.—Shaft rubber.
The Indian mode of inhaling smoke would produce the same result, whether drawn through the mouth or into the nostrils.
The use of stone tubes for astronomical purposes, which has been discovered by some imaginative writers, is, of course, absurd; nevertheless they are useful in viewing distant objects on a bright day, especially when looking toward the sun.
Nearly all of the tubes made of soft material with tapering perforation seem to have been gouged rather than drilled. Schumacher observes that the California Indians drilled their tubes from both ends and enlarged the hole from one end by scraping, the mouthpiece being made of a bird bone stuck on with asphaltum.[120]
There are five classes of stone tubes in the collection of the Bureau, as follows: