8. Needle-like Stone Implements.
An awl, 1-8608, [plate 12], fig. 10, of stone, comes from stratum II. [Plate 12], fig. 9, 1-8711, from stratum IV, is pierced and similar to the above though needle-shaped.[[99]] From scratches appearing on 1-8608 we infer that it was used on rather hard materials.
9. Tobacco Pipes.
It is remarkable that tobacco pipes were found only in stratum II; of these we have five perfect specimens and one fragment. This bears out the statement made above, that stone utensils well-made and smoothed off were found only in the upper strata of the mound and particularly in stratum II. Since it is not probable that the inhabitants of the lower strata were ignorant of the practice of smoking, the absence of pipes must be explained in some other way. On the one hand it is possible that many of the older pipes were made of wood. Powers has described a number of wooden pipes in use among the Indians of today. On the other hand, it is possible that the practice of smoking was not so common in remoter periods and therefore it would be likely that fewer pipes would be found. There is a third possibility, that the large number of pipes found in stratum II is dependent on the method of disposing of the dead, so characteristic of this stratum and which caused articles to be preserved which would otherwise have disappeared. The pipes described below represent two primitive types, with some insignificant variations.
[Plate 12], figs. 2a and (cross section) 2b, 1-8622, represents one type. It is made of a soft serpentine-like material, gray on the broken surface and reddish brown on the outside. It is one and seven-eighths inches long and incomplete. There is a broad bowl-like part and a narrow neck or stem, a prolongation of it. The bowl is conical, one and one-eighth inches long and of inconsiderable width, being three-fourths of an inch in diameter. The “boring” of the stem portion is cylindrical and eccentric.
[Plate 12], figs. 3a and 3b, 1-8623, is the only representative of the second type. It is made of green serpentine, and is two and one-sixteenth inches long, tapering into a tubular shape. The hole in the stem is as above, only at the mouth end it is conical and shorter. A groove is cut into the tapering end.
[Plate 12], figs. 1a and (in section) 1b, 1-8624, is made of soft gray stone and is very similar to the preceding one, except that it lacks the groove at the mouth end and that it is shorter and thicker.
[Plate 12], figs. 4a and (in section) 4b, 1-8626, is a small cylindrical object only nine-sixteenths of an inch long and seventeen-thirty-seconds of an inch wide. The seven-sixteenth inch conical hole takes up nearly the whole width of the stem so that the rim surrounding it is sharp. The short conical boring at the stem end is only five-sixteenths of an inch wide. The proof that this too was used as a tobacco pipe lies in the fact of the disparity of the two conical borings and in that the entire width of the bowl end of the pipe is used to the best advantage. It seems to have been more of a miniature or toy than an article in common use. However, the quantity of tobacco needed to fill any of the pipes could not have been great since the cone-shaped cavity in the bowl is so small. One is here reminded of Schumacher’s entertaining description of the way in which a Klamath tipped back his head in order to raise his pipe vertically that he might lose none of the tobacco. The stem ends of the pipes are equally imperfect. They must certainly all have been fastened to a pipe-like mouth-piece similar to the stone pipes which Professor Putnam has pictured and described and which when unearthed still had the mouth-pieces attached by means of asphaltum.[[100]] Some Indian pipes of today are fastened to the mouth-pieces by means of ligatures,[[101]] as was evidently the case with pipe shown in [plate 12], fig. 3, and with another one of the collection (1-8625) the stem of which had been broken. A rude notch was cut into the outside of the stem to facilitate the rebinding and to give it a better hold. At any rate, the means of attaching the mouth-piece (comp. particularly figs. 1 and 4) was as inadequate as was the receptacle for the tobacco at the front end. Short reed-like tobacco pipes are particularly characteristic of the middle portion of California. A stone tobacco pipe coming from a shellmound in Visitacion Valley south of San Francisco, pictured by H. H. Bancroft,[[102]] is very similar to [plate 12], fig. 3. The fourth one in the plate, pictured by Powers, is also analogous. Short pipes are of course also found in southern California,[[103]] but the longer reed-like variety is more usual. A tobacco pipe pictured by Marquis de Nadaillac and coming from the cliff dwellers[[104]] is somewhat similar to [plate 12], fig. 2, but here the stem was so slight that there was no need of a special mouth-piece. The short pipes as well as the long ones of southern California[[105]] are also found in the eastern part of the United States. Several clay pipes from New Jersey[[106]] may be compared to them; also two objects merely classified as “pipes,” but most probably tobacco pipes, from West Virginia[[107]] and Tennessee.[[108]]
[99] Prof. Putnam, p. 211, in figs. 87, 88, from Santa Barbara.