AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 397 



that the tubular and couoidal pipe is comparatively common through- 

 out the continent and that it is the most primitive of all forms, as it is 

 the one found over the largest area of the continent, it being also the 

 type upon which there are the least evidences of file marks. Among 

 all tubular pipes which have come under the writer's observation the 

 mark of the file appears only once, and in that instance it is upon a 

 small surface of a glossy specimen which may well be modern. 



The surfaces of tubular pipes, with scarcely an. exception, have every 

 appearance of being made with stone tools, excepting, of course, the 

 Hui)a pipe. The drill marks in tubular pipes have also every indica- 

 tion of beiug made with primitive tools, and it is the only type found 

 in the country upon which steel tool marks do not appear with such 

 frequency as to indicate the contemporaneity of the white man ; not 

 of necessity that he made them, but that tbey were made with tools 

 supplied by him. The shape itself of many of the American Indian 

 tubes is such, and their ornamentation is of a character to lead to the 

 conclusion that they are due to European intluences. The aboriginal 

 mechanic made at one bound a wonderful stride when he first became 

 possessed of a blade of 

 iron, even though it were 

 but the hoop of a barrel ; 

 and how much greater 

 was his advance when he 

 became possessed of im 



plements of steel! Every i^ss^^aB-— Fig. 39. 



forward step in the art of stone hourglass tube. 



sculpture or of carving Nashville, Tennessee. 



Cat. No. 5355,. U.S. N'.M. Collected by J. Vanlen. 



throughout the known 



world has been chiefly due to the discovery of improved tools, which 

 have limited possibilities. AVith the stone-pecking tool carving was 

 possible, but slow, while sculpture in free action was an impossibility, 

 because of the jar of the working tool. An attempt at the rein-esenta- 

 tion of free action is first found to be successful when the bronze blade 

 supplanted the stone hammer, and statues were made from the softest 

 stones, instead of from the granites and diorites which had preceded 

 them. The steel blade and the rasp made the sculpture of marble in the 

 round with free action first possible. Is it probable that the American 

 Indian, alone of all the races of the earth, formed so startling an excep- 

 tion as to have carved perfectly in the round and to have had no period 

 of rude art? The Indian was quick to appreciate and to employ tools 

 which so materially lightened the labors of life as did those made of iron. 

 Fig. 39 is a tube of the hourglass pattern, collected by Mr. J. Var- 

 den, from Nashville, Tennessee. With few exceptions, these tubes 

 are made from steatite, and are more smoothly ground than is usually 

 the case with conoidal i)ipes, and show a higher appreciation of art. 

 They vary in length from 5 to 14 inches, with an exterior diameter of 



