Use of tobacco among North American Indians

by Ralph Linton

1. MONITOR PIPE, HOPEWELL MOUNDS, OHIO. 2. BIRD AND FISH PIPE, HOPEWELL MOUNDS, OHIO. 3. IROQUOIS CLAY PIPE. 4. CATAWBA CLAY PIPES (MODERN). 5. MEXICAN CLAY PIPES (TOLTEC?).

Archæological finds on the Atlantic coast prove that the Indians of that region also used small clay pipes, although the early visitors only mention large pipes with excessively long stems. It seems probable that the larger forms were semi-ceremonial, like the warrior’s and chief’s pipes of the Chippewa, while the small pipes were used for individual smoking. Many of these small pipes resemble rather closely the early European trade pipes, and modern clay pipes and straight briers, but the type is unquestionably pre-European. It was probably the prototype from which modern European pipes were developed. Some of the ancient pipes were made in one piece, while others were evidently provided with separate stems, probably reeds. Identical forms were made in stone in this region.

In the southeastern United States short clay pipes with reed or wooden stems seem to have been in common use. They were often rather elaborately decorated, with modeled figures of birds, clay pellets, or incised designs. This form of pipe is still in use among the Catawba, although many of their pipes show the influence of European models ([Pl. IV], No. 4).

Pottery pipes with flaring bowls and slender stems, sometimes as much as eighteen inches long, are found in prehistoric Caddoan sites in Arkansas. The stems are excessively fragile, and as these pipes are usually found in the corners of graves, it seems probable that they were made for mortuary use rather than actual smoking. They are clearly imitations of a type which had a corn-cob bowl impaled on a reed stem.

Stone pipes occur over a wider territory than pottery pipes and show a greater diversity of form. There are some regions in which the same shapes occur in both stone and pottery, but there are several types of pipe which appear never to have been made of clay. Most of the stones used in pipe-making were quite soft, but a few pipes of quartzite and other hard rocks have been found. The material was carefully selected, and was usually obtained from regular quarries. In the eastern United States steatite, serpentine and slate were the stones most used. In the upper Mississippi valley and Great Plains the favorite material was catlinite, a fine-grained claystone soft enough to be easily worked with stone tools, but firm enough to take a high polish. Deposits of this material have been found in several states, and a local variety was used by the Ohio Mound Builders. The most famous catlinite quarries are in southeastern Minnesota and yield the highly prized red stone from which so many Plains Indian pipes are made. Here the catlinite occurs as a narrow layer, nowhere more than twenty inches thick, between strata of compact quartzite five to eight feet thick. To reach the catlinite it was necessary to break away the quartzite with stone mauls or shatter it by building large fires upon it and then dashing water on the heated stone. The old Indian workings extend for more than a mile along the face of the deposit, and the quarry must have been in use for several centuries. According to Indian traditions, the place was visited by many different tribes, who considered it common property and abstained from hostilities there. In historic times the Dakota considered it exclusively their property, and part of it was set aside for their use when they ceded their other lands in the vicinity. They still visit it occasionally to obtain stone for their pipes. White men have also worked the quarry, and in 1865 and 1866 over two thousand pipes of this material were made by the Northwestern Fur Company for their trade with the Indians.

The finest aboriginal pipes are unquestionably the so-called monitor pipes found in the Ohio mounds. Many of these show such excellence of design and execution that early investigators doubted whether they could be the work of American Indians. They are made of soft stone or of fire clay, which was carved like stone, but never of pottery. The type is characterized by a long, broad, and very thin base from the center of which the bowl rises vertically. The base may be either flat or convex. The bowl is often made in the form of an animal or bird, and some of these effigies show artistic ability of a high order. Even when the style is impressionistic, the species is usually unmistakable. The significance of these carvings can only be conjectured, but so many species are shown that it seems probable that they represent the personal guardians of the pipes’ owners. None of the historic tribes used pipes of this type, and the finest examples are unquestionably pre-Columbian. One of the pipes illustrated ([Pl. IV], No. 1) is of typical monitor form, but has the bowl incised with designs representing bird’s heads. In the other ([Pl. IV], No. 2) the shape has been modified to suit the subject, a roseate spoonbill resting on the back of some large water animal, probably a mud puppy (Necturus maculosus).

A number of large stone pipes have been found in the southeastern United States ([Pl. III], Nos. 4–5). Some of these pipes weigh several pounds and, as they are everywhere associated with smaller forms of stone or clay, they were probably made for ceremonial use. They seem to have been provided with long, thick wooden stems. These heavy pipes are of several types, and are usually well made, but are inferior to the monitor pipes in design and execution. In Georgia, Alabama, and the lower Mississippi valley there is a very massive short type in which the bowl and stem holes are conical and of nearly equal size and depth. These biconical pipes are often made in the form of human effigies or of highly conventionalized animals or birds.

Early visitors to the north Atlantic Coast say that the Indians of that region used heavy carved pipes with stems three to six feet long. Large stone pipes are hardly ever found in this region, and even small carved pipes are extremely rare. It seems probable that these early forms either had quite small, plain bowls with heavy carved stems, or were made of wood or other perishable material. Holm says that the Pennsylvania Indians made their pipe bowls of horn, and several of the Algonquian tribes have made a considerable use of carved wooden pipes in historic times. Among many tribes the stems of ceremonial pipes were elaborately decorated, and were considered more important than the bowls.

Plains Indian pipes are commoner in collections than those from any other region. The Blackfoot preferred pipes of black stone, with acorn-shaped bowls reminiscent of those in use among the Micmac and other northeastern Algonquian tribes ([Pl. V], No. 4), but throughout most of the Plains the favorite pipe was made of Minnesota catlinite, and was of Sioux type ([Pl. V], Nos. 6–8). This type is common in museums and private collections. It has a tubular bowl set vertically on a long base which projects beyond the bowl as a pointed spur. This projecting base is also found in the monitor pipes, and the two types may be remotely related. Pipes of the Sioux type have been made in great numbers by both whites and Indians, and many of those in collections were probably manufactured by whites. Either early white traders, or the tribes on the eastern edge of the Plains originated the practice of inlaying the bowls and bases with lead. The pipe was cut to nearly its final form, and a clay mold made. Deep grooves were then cut in the stone to receive the lead, and the pipe was returned to the mold, and the metal poured. The metal and stone were then rubbed down to a smooth surface. Valuable pipes which had been broken were sometimes repaired in this way.

PLATE V.