AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 483 



clay was found at Halifax wliic^b was considered to be of European 

 manufacture, on one side of the base of wbicb is scratched 1560, to 

 which, Ml". Piers thinks, no importance can be attached.' 



Prof. John Robinson, of the Peabody Academy of Science, Salem, 

 Massachusetts, refers the writer to yet another specimen of this class, 

 from Mickeltield, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, having an ornamented 

 keel-like base, perforated with live holes. The pipe is made of talcose 

 slate, nearly black in color, and was found 5 feet below the surface in 

 digging a well. The locality where this pipe was lound has been settled 

 for one hundred and fifty years. Professor Eobinson thinks the x)ipe 

 was certainly made with a knife and other steel tools, and as it is fresh, 

 clean cut, he supposes it either to have been made by a white man and 

 given to the Indians, or, if made by the Indians, that it was done with 

 a white man's tools. 



Another pipe of this type, from Grosse Poiute, Lake St. Clair, Michi- 

 gan, is referred to in the Smithsonian Eeport of 1873 as '' an object worthy 

 of some admiration, though wanting in symmetry in its details. In its 

 general appearance it is almost elegant, and even graceful. It is formed 

 of greenstone and is beautifully polished, the workmanship, as a whole, 

 displaying much skill. This singular relic is in perfect preservation, 

 with the exception of part of the base of the bowl, which in shape 

 resembles a half-closed tulip, a small portion is also wanting. The 

 date 1697, inscribed on one side of the base, is of interest. The an- 

 tiquity of the pipe is, in my estimation, much greater than this would 

 imply. The date of the settlement of Detroit is 1701, but the Jesuits 

 and other white men had already penetrated to this region many years 

 before." ' 



Hind refers to a pipe of this type which Mis tick oos, a Cree, when re- 

 lating his adventures, raised the pipe he held in his hand and exclaimed : 

 "This is what my Blackfoot friend gave me one day; the next he killed 

 my young men; he is now my enemy again." ^ 



Holm's remark, referring to New Sweden, "that the Indians leaned 

 upon their pipes," would be received with incredulity were it not that 

 Hind represents "the Fox," a Plains Cree Indian, holding in his hand 

 a pipe upon which he leans as one would upon a staff'.* 



The office of custodian of the great pipe is an important one among 

 the Blackfeet, according to Warren, who asserts that a person "is 

 appointed every four years by the elders and chiefs to take charge of 

 the sacred pipe, pipestem, mat, and other emblems of their religious 

 beliefs. A lodge is allotted for his especial use to contain these emblems 



'Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science, 1886-1890, p. 286. 



^Henry Gillman, The Mound-Builders and riatj^cuemism iu Michigan, Smithsonian 

 Report, 1873, p. 370. 



^ Henry Youle Hind, A Narrative of the Canadian Rod River Exploring Expedition 

 of 1857, ]). 11'6, London, 1860. 



Udem, II, pp. 126-127, plate v. 



