IMPLEMENTS OF STONE. 229 



though not in general elegantly sculptured. They will also be noticed under the 

 same head with those last mentioned. 



From the appearance of these relics it is fairly inferable that, among the 

 mound-builders as among the tribes of North American Indians, the practice of 

 smoking was very general if not universal. The conjecture that it was also more or 

 less interwoven with their civil and religious observances, is not without its support. 

 The use of tobacco was known to nearly all the American nations, and the pipe 

 was their grand diplomatist. In making war and in concluding peace it performed 

 an important part. Their deliberations, domestic as well as public, were conducted 

 under its influences ; and no treaty was ever made unsignalized by the passage of 

 the calumet. The transfer of the pipe from the lips of one individual to those of 

 another was the token of amity and friendship, a gage of honor with the chivalry 

 of the forest which was seldom violated. In their religious ceremonies it was also 

 introduced, with various degrees of solemnity. A substitute for tobacco was 

 sometimes furnished in the tender bark of the young willow ; other substitutes 

 were found among the Northern tribes in the leaves and roots of various pungent 

 herbs. The custom extended to Mexico, where however it does not seem to have 

 been invested with any of those singular conventionalities observed in the higher 

 latitudes. It prevailed in South America and in the Caribbean islands. The form 

 of the Indian pipe of North America is extremely variable, and very much the 

 subject of individual taste. Some are excessively rude, but most are formed with 

 great labor from the finest materials within reach. Along the Mississippi and 

 among the tribes to the westward of that river, the material most valued for the 

 purpose was, and still is, the red pipe-stone of the Coteau dcs Prairies, a beautiful 

 mineral resembling steatite, easily worked and capable of a high finish. The spot 

 whence it is obtained, and which is certainly one of the most interesting mineral 

 localities of the whole country, is regarded with superstitious veneration by the 

 Indians. It is esteemed to be under the special protection of the Great Spirit, 

 and is connected with many of their most singular traditions. Until very recently 

 it was the common resort of the tribes, where animosities and rivalries were 

 forgotten, and where the most embittered foes met each other on terms of 

 amity. In carving pipes from this material they expended their utmost skill, and 

 we may regard them as the chef d'ceuvres of modern Indian art. The following 

 engraving. Fig. 128, from originals, will exhibit their predominant form, which it 

 will be observed is radically diflerent from that of the mound pipes. The larger 

 of the two was once the favorite pipe of the elocjuent Keokuk, chief of the Sacs 

 and Foxes, whose name occupies a conspicuous place in the Indian history of the 

 North-west. These pipes were smoked with long tubes of wood, from twenty 

 inches to three feet in length, fantastically ornamented with feathers and beads. 



