Fig. 480. (S. 1–1.) Effigy pipe, Hopewell Group.
Fig. 481. (S. 1–1.) Turtle pipe found near Burnett, Dodge County, Wisconsin. Milwaukee Public Museum collection.
Fig. 481 A. (S. 1–1.) Another view of Fig. 481.
The Iroquois pipes and pipes characteristic of the Plains, pipes classified by Mr. McGuire and Mr. West as Micmacs, and other modern pipes, are scattered quite generally throughout north, central, and eastern United States. It is good that Mr. McGuire has given us so careful a distribution of pipes as is set forth in his fifteen divisions. The student of archæology must distinguish between the pipes from the old burial-places and those that are apparently modern. The prehistoric cultures and the modern cultures of our American aborigines here in the United States may be compared with those of Europe; where on one site we might find Roman weapons or implements, those of early Germanic tribes associated with the Roman, and beneath all of these, those of the stone-age type. But if the soil had been disturbed, through digging on the part of people subsequent to these epochs, stone-age objects, together with those of Roman and Germanic occupations, might be found associated together. It follows, therefore, that here in America, when we find modern catlinite pipes and rectangular stone pipes on a village-site or beneath the surface, these may represent different epochs or cultures. These cultures may or may not be separated by hundreds of years.
There are many complications to be taken into consideration, in our study of the distribution of pipes. As has been pointed out, rude pipes are quite as likely to have been made by modern Indians as by prehistoric people.
It does not follow, because the type of pipes recognized as Iroquoian in character is widespread north of the Ohio Valley and Canada, that all pipes in that region were made by the tribes of this stock.
The Iroquois overran the entire territory north of the Ohio and east of the Scioto. We know that they overwhelmed the Eries, Hurons, and others, whose art was quite different.