AMERICAN AHORTGINAL I'IPKS AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 437 



could oue thereby determine to what tribe tliey belonged, but could even 

 decide at a glance whether the one bearing it came on a friendly or hos- 

 tile mission. The very early pipes, especially those referred to by the 

 French, we know were red, white, or black, and we rarely find allusions 

 to ornamentation of their bowls, but when we do it refers to color; 

 whereas particulars are usually gone into in reference to the stem, tlie 

 color of feathers composing the decoration, the birds composing them, 

 or how a hoop of hair was attached to the stem and arranged. 



The pipe among many of the tribes appears to have protected its 

 bearer so long as he was on his errand, even among bitter enemies. 

 That the pipe had the sanctity commonly attributed to it by early 

 writers is demonstrably inaccurate, for there are numerous records of 

 the pipe bearers not being received, and even of receiving them and 

 subsequently of escorting them a certain distance from camp and then 

 knocking them in the head with scant ceremony. 



All wooden pipe stems are not round; some are flattened parallelo- 

 grams, others are triangular, ellipsoidal, or even square; some are soft, 

 being made of the quills of birds; others are of stone and of a size offer- 

 ing diflBculties in inserting them in the smokers' mouth. 



The angle of bowl to stem varies from those in which both are in a 

 common plane to those in which bowl and stem are parallel to each 

 other. 



Mr. W. H. Dall relates that "the Hudsons Bay men make passable 

 pipe stems by taking a straight-grained piece of willow or spruce 

 without knots and cutting through the outer layers of bark and wood. 

 This stick is heated in the ashes, and by twisting the ends in contrary 

 directions the heart wood may be gradually drawn out, leaving a 

 wooden tube.'" 



Hind describes a unique pipe used on a certain occasion by a Gree 

 Indian. "I asked," he says, "what he would do for a smoke until he 

 had finished the new pipe. He arose and walking to the edge of the 

 swamp cut four reeds and joined some pieces together. After he had 

 made a hole through the joints, he gently pushed one extremity in a 

 slanting direction into the earth, which he had previously made firm by 

 pressure with his foot. He then cut out a small hole in the clay, above 

 the extremity of tiie reed, and molding it with his fingers, laughingly 

 said, 'Now give me tobacco, and I will show you how to smoke it.' He 

 then filled the hole with a mixture of tobacco and the bearberry, placed 

 a live coal on the top, and stretching himself at full length on the 

 ground, with his chin supported by both hands, he took the reed 

 between his lips and enjoyed a long smoke." - 



While this pipe was certainly most primitive, we have an account of 

 one yet more simple, the description of which is taken from a recent 

 newspaper clipping given the writer, in which a glimpse is shown of a 



'William H. Dall, Alaska and its Resources, p. 81, Boston, 1890. 

 ^Hiiid, The Cauadiau lied liiver, II, p. 138, London, 1860. 



