(Little cricket full of play),
Can afford his tube to feed
With the fragrant Indian weed;
Pleasure for a nose divine,
Incense of the god of wine.
Happy thrice, and thrice again,
Happiest he of happy men.”
In Virginia’s native country, the pipe sticks closer to a man than his boots. An American is no more furnished without his pipe or cigar, than a house is furnished without a looking glass. To the native Indian, it supplies an important place; it becomes his treaty of peace—his challenge of war. It is the instrument of a solemn ratification, and the subject of more than one semi-sacred legend, which has woven about the heart of the Red-man.
“At the Red-pipe Stone Quarry,” say they, “happened the mysterious birth of the red-pipe, which has blown its fumes of peace or war to the remotest corners of the Continent, which has visited every warrior, and passed through its reddened stem, the irrevocable oath of war and desolation. And here, also, the peace breathing calumet was born, and fringed with the eagle’s quills, which has shed its thrilling fumes over the land, and soothed the fury of the relentless savage. The Great Spirit, at an ancient period, here called together the Indian warriors, and standing on the precipice of the red-pipe stone rock, broke from its wall a piece, and made a huge pipe, by turning it in his hand, which he smoked over them, and to the north, the south, the east, and the west; and told them that this stone was red—that it was their flesh—that they must use it for their pipes of peace, that it belonged to them all, and that the war club, and the scalping knife must not be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe, his head went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the rock, for several miles, was melted and glazed. Two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women, guardian spirits of the place, entered them in a blaze of fire, and they are heard there yet, answering to the invocations of the priests or medicine men, who consult them when they are visitors to this sacred place.”[11]
“From the red stone of the quarry