428 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



case with almost all American pipes. A peculiarity of this bowl is 

 the unusually large size of the stem hole, which is quite as large as 

 is the opening of the bowl itself, the walls varying from one-fourth to 

 one half of an inch in thickness. Around tlie outer edge of the rim are 

 twelve notches cut at equal distances; while a totemic figure has been 

 scratched on the smooth surface opposite the stem, the significance of 

 which it is impossible to determine. It consists of eight diverging 

 straight lines, arranged in fan shape, from which one other straight 

 line extends toward the top; from this latter line yet another one 

 projects at an angle of 45 degrees, to the right and down; and two 

 other lines diverge at a like angle on the left. The surface of this urn- 

 shaped bowl was originally smoothed with unusual care, and its out- 

 line is quite graceful, though the notches and at- 

 tempt at totemic ornamentation are extremely crude. 

 The form of this bowl is graceful, but the scratch- 

 ing is not so rude as to suggest tliat in such pipes the 

 art of the whites and the Indians is combined, the 

 savage owner having added his barbaric decoration 

 to the object received from the Europeans. Were 

 this the case in a single instance it would be insignifi- 

 cant, but as it is observable in dozens of cases it is 

 tolerably conclusive evidence. 



Among bowl pipes of vase-like form they are found 

 to vary from those which are as broad as they are 

 long to specimens having a height four times as great 

 as their diameter. Tliis type is usually made from 

 steatite, or kindred stones, capable of resisting heat, 

 though, as with almost all American pipes, there 

 are numerous exceptions to the rule. One, in the 

 Smithsonian collection, of gray sandstone was found 

 in a cave on Tar Kiver, Yancy County, North Carolina, and another, 

 found in a kitchen heap in Kanawha County, West Virginia, which was 

 made from a brown stone. Other specimens are known of this type 

 made from partially decomposed limestone, feldspar, and even fossil 

 coral. The writer is informed by the Kev. W. M. Beauchamp that this 

 type is frequently encountered in Onondaga County, New York. 



Pipes of this urn-shaped type are found also along the headwaters of 

 the St. Lawrence, on the south shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, 

 and along the upper waters of the Ohio and its affluents, a typical 

 specimen being from Accotiuk, Virginia, while yet other specimens in 

 the U. S, National Museum collection are from New York, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and North 

 Carolina. 



If the area of distribution of the urn-shaped pipe is compared with 

 the tribal distribution first known to the whites, as it appears on 

 Powell's linguistic map, it will be seen that this especial form of the 



Fig. 52. 

 VASE-SHAPED PIPE. 



Accotink, Virginia. 



Cat. No. 42681, U.S.N.M. Co 

 leutert by J. n. Lucas. 



