Fig. 459. (S. 1–5.) University of Vermont collection.
Fig. 446 shows five tubular pipes from California, collection of Professor James A. Barr. These are all specialized forms, and somewhat different in the method of treatment, being highly polished and ornamented by rings carved in relief.
The disc pipe is placed in a class by itself by Mr. McGuire. We have six of these at Andover, all from graves at the mouth of the Wabash, southern Indiana. One of these is shown in Fig. 447. Mr. West remarks as follows regarding this type of pipe:—
“The disc pipe, in the writer’s opinion, is an old type, and was in use by the aborigines of this country long before the coming of the whites. Authorities, however, differ as to this conclusion. General Gates P. Thruston suggests that the stem holes of the disc pipe being funnel-shaped, it may safely be regarded as an old type.
“Mr. J. D. McGuire writes: ‘The shape is so suggestive of the jewsharp, an instrument used extensively in trade with the Indians, as to indicate that the pipe itself is modeled after the form of this primitive musical instrument, even though the file marks, so common on many of the pipes, are absent from those coming under the writer’s observation.’
Fig. 460. (S. 1–3.) Collection of L. W. Hills, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
“A careful study of the several forms of this type convinces the author that it was not modeled after the jewsharp. Of the twenty-eight examples in the author’s collection, when examined with a powerful glass, all exhibited innumerable marks and scratches, that could have been made by the use of a piece of sandstone or flake of flint. In no case were file marks found.
“Mr. McGuire states: ‘Finding them of catlinite so far from the quarries would indicate that they are of no great age.’ If Mr. McGuire’s conclusion is correct, aboriginal barter and trade could not have been carried on between distant tribes until within a comparatively recent date, an abundance of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.”[[13]]
