CALTANISETTA, a town and episcopal see of Sicily, the capital of a province of the same name, 60 m. S.E. of Palermo direct and 83 m. by rail, situated 1930 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 43,303. The town is of Saracenic origin, as its name Kalat-al-Nisa, the “Ladies’ Castle,” indicates, and some ruins of the old castle (called Pietrarossa) still exist. Otherwise the town contains no buildings of artistic or historical interest, but it commands striking views. It is the centre of the Sicilian sulphur industry and the seat of a royal school of mines. Two miles east is the interesting Norman abbey of S. Spirito.
CALTROP (from the Mid. Eng. calketrappe, probably derived from the Lat. calx, a heel, and trappa, Late Lat. for a snare), an iron ball, used as an obstacle against cavalry, with four spikes so arranged, that however placed in or on the ground, one spike always points upwards. It is also the botanical name for several species of thistles.
CALUIRE-ET-CUIRE, a town of eastern France, in the department of Rhone, 2½ m. N. by E. of Lyons by rail. Pop. (1906) 9255. It has manufactures of coarse earthenware and hard-ware, copper and bronze foundries and nursery-gardens.
CALUMET (Norm. Fr. form of chalumet, from Lat. calamus, a reed), the name given by the French in Canada to the “peace-pipe” of the American Indians. This pipe occupied among the tribes a position of peculiar symbolic significance, and was the object of profound veneration. It was smoked on all ceremonial occasions, even on declarations of war, but its special use was at the making of treaties of peace. It was usually about 2½ ft. long, and in the west the bowl was made of red pipes tone (catlinite), a fine-grained, easily-worked stone of a rich red colour found chiefly in the Côteau des Prairies west of Big Stone Lake, Dakota. The quarries were formerly neutral ground among the warring Indian tribes, many sacred traditions being associated with the locality and its product (Longfellow, Hiawatha, i.). The pipe stem was of reed decorated with eagles’ quills or women’s hair. Native tobacco mixed with willow-bark or sumac leaves was smoked. The pipe was offered as a supreme proof of hospitality to distinguished strangers, and its refusal was regarded as a grievous affront. In the east and south-east, the bowl was of white stone, sometimes pierced with several stem holes so that many persons might smoke at once.
See Joseph D. Macguire (exhaustive report,640 pages), “Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Aborigines” in Smithsonian Report (American Bureau of Ethnology) for 1897, vol. i.; and authorities quoted in Handbook of American Indians (Washington, 1907).
CALUMPIT, a town of the province of Bulacán, Luzon, Philippine Islands, at the junction of the Quiñgua river with the Rio Grande de la Pampanga, about 25 m. N.W. of Manila. Pop. (1903) 13,897. It is served by the Manila & Dagupan railway, and the bridge across the Rio Grande is one of the longest in the Philippines. The surrounding country is a fertile plain, producing large quantities of rice, as well as sugar, Indian corn and a variety of fruits. Calumpit has a large rice-mill and one of the largest markets in the Philippines. The bridge, convent and church of the town were fired and completely destroyed by insurgent troops in 1899. The language is Tagalog.