432 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



Fig. 59. 



BIRD PIPE. 



Murphy, North Caroliua. 



Cast, Cat. No. 30ii6l», U.S.N. M. Collected by G. T. 



The striic left by the drill in boring it out are so sharply cut as to 

 leave no room to doubt that the work was done with a tool of metal, 

 quite likely of steel. 

 The perfection of finish and artistic pose of the bird rei)resented in 



tig-, 01 should be good reason for consid- 

 ering itone of the most perfect of Ameri- 

 can pipes. It is made of a black serpen- 

 tine collected in Mineral County, West 

 Virginia, by Mr. J. A. Davis, and repre- 

 sents some water bird, probably a swan 

 or goose. The graceful pose of the head 

 and neck of the bird is nearly perfect. 

 It is represented in the act of dressing 

 its feathers. Well down on the neck are 

 nine sharply incised lines, each three- 

 fourths of an inch long, all of them 

 straight and parallel. The wings ex- 

 tend well down on the body and are 

 slightly raised above the surrounding 

 surface. The breast has been brought 

 to a high polish. Into the surface of it 

 have been drilled about 150 small cir- 

 cular depressions. These shallow holes 

 are scattered without order, though they 

 are nearly equidistant. While many aboriginal stone relics of the 

 Indians are well ground and brought to a smooth surface, polish is of 

 such rare occurrence that one is inclined to suspect white iuliueuces 

 wherever it is encountered. Among Ameri- 

 can implements it is probably more notice- 

 able in the gray tubular serpentine horns 

 from Ohio and West Virginia than in any 

 other objects. It must be admitted there is 

 no work upon this pipe, if we except its pol- 

 ish, which could not be done with primitive 

 tools, though there is doubt if it is purely 

 aboriginal. 



There is in the collection of casts of the 



U. S. National Museum (Cat. No. 22176) one 



from Scioto County, Ohio, much on the order 



of the swan pipe, which was intended possi- 



)ly I/O represent a loon. 



Pipes, generally of local types, appear to 

 be found throughout the continent under 

 similar conditions of surroundings to that of other aboriginal objects, 

 on the surface, in shell heaps, in graves of all kinds, among the Pueblo 

 ruins, in the mounds, and in the caves. Even the English trade pipe 



Fig. 60. 



BIKD PIPE. 



Williamson County, Tennessee. 



Cat. No. 19978, U.S.N.M. Collected by 

 M. W. c:iark. 



