404 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



the village of Morniiigside, at the base of the Peutland Hills, in Scot- 

 land, wliere numerous traces of primitive population Lave been brought 

 to light.' 



Dr. E. A. Barber refers to a pipe of Etruscan origin, having a beau- 

 tiful patina, in the Campagna collection, which presents some charac- 

 teristics of originality, yet Eev. W. M. Beauchanip refers to a specimen 

 of quite similar type in his collection at Tompkinsville, New York 

 which was found on the shore of the Susquehanna River. 



It is to be regretted that the history of the tomahawk pipe is so 

 incomplete in early American writings, for it certainly has occupied as 

 important a place, both in war and peace, over a great part of the con- 

 tinent as any pii)e known, and is peculiarly a war pipe and one of the 

 most familiar and terrible weapons of the allies of the whites in the 

 endless colonial wars of America. According to Strachey the native 

 term for "hatchet" was "taccahacan," or "tamahaac',"as distinguished 

 from an Indian hatchet, which was "cunsenagwas."^ 



This word eventually came to designate the "war hatchet" of the 

 Indian, supplied by the military commanders of the whole continent in 

 equipping the warriors on the many expeditions in which French and 

 English were constantly engaged, and was furnished the Indian allies 

 of the English in our war of Independence. This weapon was either in 

 the form of a spear or hatchet blade on one side, while upon the oppo- 

 site side there was a cup-like cavity with a small hole extending into 

 the eye of the weapon into which a tough handle of wood was fitted, 

 18 inches or 2 feet in length. The handle was perforated almost its 

 entire length, and below the hollow of the bowl it was bored at right 

 angles to this perforation, a suitable stem hole for the passage of the 

 tobacco smoke when the implement was in use as a pipe. The toma- 

 hawk pipe was not only attractive and popular in trade, but, like the 

 earlier trade pipe, was given as a present at councils and ratifications 

 of treaties; it was a pipe, a hatchet, and a mace or hammer all in one, 

 and answered an important military requirement in lessening the 

 weight and incumbrances of the warrior, who otherwise would have 

 tenaciously held to the stone pipe, which, in itself, was heavier than the 

 tomahawk. French, English, and Spanish all appear to have made 

 and distributed the metal tomahawk. Usually it was of iron, but 

 examjiles are known of copper, of brass, and of pewter. Some were 

 made of a combination of brass and iron, intended for ornamenta- 

 tion rather than to add to its eifectiveness. At times the blades were 

 inlaid with silver in ornamental designs. The outline <»f the bladed 

 tomahawk of metal is so similar to the stone hammer-ax or Thor- 

 hammer of antiquity as to suggest that the one was copied from the 

 other. The handles of these tomahawks were from an inch to 1^ 

 inches in diameter, the stems of them when not bored were split open, 



'Daniel Wilson, Arch;i'ology and Annals of Scotland, p. 681, Eflinburgh, 1851. 

 ^William Strachey, Historie ofTravaille into Virginia, 1612 (Hakluyt Society). 



