384 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



C:A. Nci. I5'»J-11 



Fig. 15. 

 BONE PIPE. 



Kiowa. Indians. 



n.S.N.M. Collected by J^ 



opposite end has been cut down to a size which could readily be placed 

 in the mouth, leaving the natural cavity to hold the smoking material. 

 Fig. IG shows that the Indian has been taught the frailty of the sim- 

 l)le bone when exposed to the heat of the burning leaves. This bone is 

 of the same character as that of the ])receeding pipe, and has been reen- 

 forced with strips of rawhide wrapped on wet and allowed to shrink. 

 Except the cutting oft' and wear on the ends of these bones there 



api)ears to have 

 been nothing done 

 with either, other 

 than the reenforce- 

 ment of the hide. 



The writer is in- 

 formed by Capt. H. 

 L. Scott, of the 

 U. S. Army, that the pipe used in the medicine dance by the Kiowas, 

 which is held in the summer, is in the custody of the medicine keeper 

 and descended to this tribe from the Arapahoes, who in turn received 

 it from the Crows in the far north. It is straight and made of a black 

 stone. The sacred pipe of the Arapahoes, which has an antiq^uity, 

 according to their tradition, as great as that of the tribe itself and 

 which is valued beyond price by them, is a straight tube made of a 

 black stone and is at present in possession of the northern division of 

 the tribe, which is in Wyoming. White Beaver, in a letter to Dr. E. A. 

 Barber, of Philadelphia, says, "From 'Medicine Smoke' — big lire, or 

 He-mon-e-gah — a son of the head chief of the Winuebagoes, I yesterday 

 heard a legend of the use 

 of sha-sha or red willow" 

 [iSalix purpurea], "not to- 

 bacco." He refers to the 

 unwrapping of " a j)ipe 

 made from the shin bone 

 of an elk which was em- 

 ployed at a treaty of peace 



made between the Winnebagoes and the Sioux, which was only broken 

 when the pipe was polluted by the chah-de — tobacco of a nation or 

 place where the sun rises." 



Prince Maximilian says of the pipe of the Assinniboines that it was 

 generally made of blackish stone or dark clay, in which they smoked 

 the herb kinnikinick, or the leaves of the bearberry {Arctostaphylos 

 tiva-ursi), mixed with tobacco. He refers also to a pipe used by the 

 Indians of the upper Missouri, who employ it on warlike excursions, the 

 bowl and stem of which are in the same line, as a tube.^ 



The Blackfeet use in their pipes the bearberry, which they call 

 "sakakomi," and which in company each person passes to the left.^ 

 There appear to be but few exceptions to the rule that the straight 



Fig. 16. 



COMANCHE BONE PIPE. 



Cat. No. 6901, U.S.N.M. Collected by Edw.ini Piiln 



Travels in tho Interior of North America, p. VM, London, 1843. 



