Since Mr. McGuire’s paper was published there have been large additions to pipe collections in the museums and private collections. As to the number of pipes in the Smithsonian, American Museum, Peabody Museum, and others, I do not know, but one might venture the opinion that each of these three institutions have at the least fifteen hundred or two thousand pipes scattered throughout the collections; and the smaller museums in proportion. Professor W. C. Mills informs me that there are two hundred and forty pipes in the exhibit under his charge at Columbus, comprising collections owned by the Ohio State University and the Ohio Archæological and Historical Society. They are divided as follows: Monitor, twenty-eight; effigy, forty; tubular, twenty-four; miscellaneous, one hundred and forty-eight. In the Andover collection there are about one hundred and seventy pipes.
There are two large private collections of pipes in America. Mr. John A. Beck of Pittsburg owns about eighteen hundred pipes of various kinds from the United States and Canada. Mr. George A. West reports that there are six hundred in his possession.
Pipes, from their very nature, were probably more highly prized among our aborigines than any other articles. The pipe was sacred, and it was not until Europeans, with their superior civilization, took up the smoking custom, that it became a habit and totally lost its original significance.
It is quite likely that pipes were more generally exchanged among tribes than other artifacts. Possibly, one should except copper, but I am not even sure of that. We find Northern forms South, Eastern types West, and a general indication that aboriginal barter or trade in pipes was extensive.
Fig. 428. (S. about 1–2.) Pipes from North Dakota mounds. Explorations of Henry Montgomery. (a) Pipe-bowl of catlinite. (b) Piece of catlinite pipe-bowl which had been cut off before burial. (c) Catlinite pipe, 2¼ inches in length. (d) Large bowl of catlinite pipe, 10¼ inches long; from Ramsey County. (e) Catlinite pipe-bowl found with the piece of pipe shown in (b). (f) Pipe-bowl made from deer antler; length, about 4 inches. (g) Clay pipe, bent; length, 5 inches; found in burial-pit in Benson County. (h) Catlinite pipe-bowl, 1½ inches long. (i) Straight bowl of clay pipe; length, 2¾ inches; found in burial-pit in Ramsey County. (See Fig. 429.)
Fig. 429. (S. about 1–2.) Pipes from North Dakota mounds. Described under Fig. 428. (American Anthropologist, vol. 8, no. 4, plate 33.)
The Classification of Pipes
No one save Mr. J. D. McGuire has attempted to group these objects. In his classification, Mr. McGuire presented four plates in which he showed the distribution of fifteen types of pipes. I have followed his numbers, but instead of presenting a map, have named states or localities, from which these were taken.