Among the Assinaboin Indians a fine marble, much too hard to admit of minute carving, but susceptible of a high polish, is cut into pipes of graceful form, and made so extremely thin, as to be nearly transparent. When lighted the glowing tobacco shines through, and presents a singular appearance at night, or in a dark lodge. Another favourite stone is a coarse species of jasper, also too hard to admit of elaborate ornamentation. But the choice of material is by no means invariably guided by the facilities which the position of the tribe affords. Mr. Kane informed me that, in coming down the Athabaska river, when near its source in the Rocky Mountains, he observed his Assinaboin guides select the favourite bluish jasper from among the water-worn stones in the bed of the river, to carry home for the purpose of pipe manufacture, although they were then fully five hundred miles from their lodges; and my own Chippewa guides carried off pieces from the pipe-stone rock, at the mouth of the Neepigon river, though they had several hundred miles to traverse before they would reach their homes. Such traditional adherence to the choice of materials peculiar to a remote source, as well as the perpetuation of special forms and patterns, are of value as clews to former migrations, and indications of affinity among scattered tribes.
Fig.84.—Chippewa Pipe.
The Chippewas, at the head of Lake Superior, carve their pipes out of a dark close-grained stone procured from Lake Huron; and frequently introduce groups of animals and human figures with considerable artistic skill. Pabahmesad, or the Flier, an old Chippewa, still living on the Great Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, is generally known as Pwahguneka, the Pipe Maker, literally “he makes pipes.” Though brought in contact with the Christian Indians of the Manitoulin Islands, he resolutely adheres to the pagan creed and rites of his fathers, and resists all encroachments of civilisation. He gathers his materials from the favourite resorts of different tribes, using the muhkuhda-pwahgunahbeck, or black pipe-stone of Lake Huron; the wahbe-pwahgunahbeck, or white pipe-stone, procured on St. Joseph’s Island; and the misko-pwahgunahbeck, or red pipe-stone of the Coteau des Prairies. His saw, with which the stone is first roughly blocked out, is made of a bit of iron hoop; and his other tools are correspondingly rude. Nevertheless the workmanship of Pabahmesad shows him to be a master of his art; as will be seen from a characteristic illustration of his ingenious sculpture, engraved here (Fig. 84) from the original, in the museum of the University of Toronto.
Fig. 85.—Babeen Pipe.
But the most elaborate and curious specimens of pipe-sculpture are those executed by the Chimpseyan or Babeen Indians, who also carve skilfully in wood and bone. They display much ingenuity in grass-plaiting for hats and waterproof baskets, or kettles; and in the manufacture of basket-nets of wicker-work, with which they catch the ulikon, a kind of smelt abundant in the rivers along their coast. They are, indeed, pre-eminent among the savages of the North Pacific coast for artistic skill; yet to all appearance, in the collision with the whites, their extermination is inevitable at no distant date. The frontispiece, Plate 1. illustrates the characteristic physiognomy of this people. It is the portrait of Kaskatachyuh, a Chimpseyan chief, from sketches taken by Mr. Paul Kane, while travelling in their country. He wears one of the native hats made of dyed and plaited grass. The Chimpseyans belong to the Thlinket stock, tribes of which extend as far north as Behring Bay. They do not feast on the whale, because it is one of their tribal totems; but the blubber of the porpoise and seal is a favourite delicacy. The Babeens or big-lip Indians,—as the Chimpseyans are most frequently called,—have received this name from the deformation of the under-lip in the women of the tribe, produced by the insertion of a piece of wood into a slit made in infancy, and increased in size until the lip protrudes like the bill of a duck; and among the wooden masks which they carve of life-size, this protruding lip is the invariable characteristic of those of the women. Other and not less singular customs mark the distinction between the sexes, and are perpetuated even after death. Their women are wrapped in mats and placed on an elevated platform, or in a canoe raised on poles, while the bodies of the males are invariably burned. The Chimpseyans and the Clalam Indians, occupying Vancouver’s Island and the coasts in the neighbourhood of Charlotte’s Sound, carve bowls, platters, and other utensils out of a blue claystone or slate, from which also they make their pipes, and decorate them with many ingenious and grotesque devices. One of the smaller and simpler of these pipes, shown in Fig. 85, is placed here alongside of a chef-d’œuvre of Pabahmesad, the Chippewa artist. Nothing could better serve to illustrate the contrast between the ingenious imitative art of Algonquin pipe-sculpture and the exuberant fancifulness of the Babeen carvings. Large and complicated designs are common, sometimes inlaid with bone or ivory, and embracing every native or foreign object adapted to the sculptor’s fancy. The same talent for carving finds room for its display on their ivory combs; and on ladles and spoons made from the horns of a mountain goat, which is one of the principal animals that they hunt on land. The claystone carvings of strictly native design chiefly occur on their pipe-sculptures, and consist of human figures, and of strange monstrosities intermingling human and brute forms, in which curious analogies may frequently be traced to the sculptures of Central America. But the powers of observation and imitation are most strikingly illustrated in claystone carvings of objects of foreign origin. The collections formed by the United States Exploring Expedition, now at Washington, include numerous specimens of this class, representing European houses, forts, boats, horses, and fire-arms; and reproducing in minute detail the cords, pulleys, and other minutiæ of the shipping which frequent the coast. The example shown in Fig. 86 is a curious combination of native and foreign elements; and may be regarded as the conventional representation by the native artist of a bear hunt in the vicinity of one of the Hudson Bay Company’s stations. The animal-heads on some of the human figures represent the grotesque masks already referred to as among their favourite carvings, and a special branch of native art. They are executed in wood, the size of life, and brilliantly coloured; and are worn in the grand dances of the tribe.
Fig. 86.—Babeen Pipe-Sculpture.
In some of the larger pipes, the entire group presents much of the grotesque exuberance of fancy, mingled with imitations from nature, which constitute the charm of ecclesiastical sculptures of the thirteenth century. Figures in the oddest varieties of posture are ingeniously interlaced, and connected by elaborate ornaments; the intermediate spaces being perforated, so as to give great lightness to the whole. But though well calculated to recall the quaint products of the medieval sculptor’s chisel, such comparisons are not suggested by any imitation of European models. Their style of art is thoroughly American; and traits of the same peculiar devices and modes of thought which mark some of the most finished sculptures of Yucatan are replete with interest, when thus recognised in regions so remote, and in the productions of rude Indian tribes.