400 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



Fig. 4:1 presents yet auother peculiar divergence from the usual tubu- 

 lar pipe. This specimen is 9 inches long, the greatest diameter being 

 2f inches, and is from Williams Island, Tennessee, and was collected 

 by Mr. J. B, Nicklin. The interior of the tube contracts and expands 

 as does that of tig. 40. The bowl and stem are both enlarged by the 

 usual longitudinal gimging. The opening at the smaller end of this 

 tube is similar in character to that noticed in the stems of the California 

 pipes, and appears to have been intended for the insertion of a stem of 

 wood. Upon this tube lies stretched out the head and neck of a dog or 

 wolf, fairly well modeled. On the sides of the bowl are rudely scratched 

 into the serpentine, of which it is made, two totemic figures, one to the 

 right and the other to the left of the animal's nose, so rudely executed 



that it is impossible 

 to say for what they 

 are intended, though 

 one appears to repre- 

 sent the skin of some 

 bird or animal. Be- 

 tween the ears of the 

 animal are observ- 

 able a series of par- 

 allel scratches, ap- 

 parently made with 

 a iile, though the rest 

 of the implement presents no surface which could not be duplicated 

 with stone tools. The design of this pipe is more artistic than most of 

 the hand work of savages, though the totems lightly scratched into the 

 surface appear to be the work of another school from that which carved 

 the remainder, the one and the other differing radically in technique. 

 The writer has detected upon the surface of a number of the stone pipes 

 in the collections of the XJ. S. National Museum totemic characters etched 

 into the stone with some sharp-pointed tool, and they are invariably 

 extremely rude efforts to represent some animal or object; so rude are 

 these etchings that they arouse a grave doubt in the writer's mind as 

 to whether they could have been made by a people who were capable of 

 delineating animal form with the skill shown in the sculpture of many 

 of the American pipes. Even though it be admitted that there were 

 skilled artisans who made the pipes, and that the slight surface etch- 

 ings were individual totems or marks, the suspicion remains that the 

 sharp parallel, equidistant, straight lines so common on all sculptured 

 or carved pipes are evidences of the use of the tile of the white man. 



If aboriginal trade in stone implements made by the whites was of 

 such value as to justify John Smith in asking permission of Powhatan 

 to go through his country to obtain material from which to make axes, 

 how much more valuable would be the trade in ornamented pipes; and 

 can one doubt that the whites indnlged in it extensively, unless it be 



Fig. 41. 



TUBULAR STONE PIPE. 



Williams Island, Tennessee. 



Cat. No. 1017, U.S.N.M. Collected liy J. B. Nicklin. 



