Fig. 26—Mound-builder Designs.
The Mound-builders were artists, carving and cutting a variety of patterns in Bone, Mica, Shell, Copper, Clay and Stone. Without doubt they worked in other materials too, such as Wood and Bark, but these, of course, have entirely disappeared along with other perishable materials. We have seen examples of their artistic ability in the great geometrical circles, squares and octagons which they built up of earth around some of their burial mounds.
At the left in the picture is a section of a human leg bone carved with an attractive design. This was no doubt a sort of family relic or a memento of some relative who had died. In the middle of the picture is a rare design, possibly representing the universe, cut from a thin sheet of copper. At the right is the foot of an eagle, cut out of a thin sheet of mica, as skillfully as anyone could do it today.
The finest examples of Mound-builder art are the many tobacco pipes taken from the Mounds.
TOBACCO AND TOBACCO PIPES
Fig. 27—The Mound-builder Tobacco Pipe.
The Mound-builders cultivated and smoked Tobacco long before civilized people knew of the plant. Above is a picture of one of their Tobacco Pipes, in which they have shown their artistic ability by carving it in the image of the Dog, their only domestic animal. Several hundred pipes like this one have been found in mounds in Ohio, representing many different animals and birds, and the human form has also been found. The American Indian not only taught the white man the use of tobacco, but it was probably from pipes very much like those of the Mound-builders, with stem and bowl, from which our modern tobacco-pipes are copied.
This Pipe is made of Ohio Pipestone, which is found in Scioto County. The Tobacco Pipes of the Mound-builders and prehistoric Indians are made not only of this material, but of several kinds of stone, including limestone, slate, steatite or soapstone, and granite.