AMERICAN ABOIilGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 509 



smoking, and be pretended to seize it iu liis baud and tbrow it into tbe 

 tire." ' 



Wberever tbere are accounts of early Spanish or French travels 

 among tbe American Indians we find the cross played an important 

 part. The Spanish upon entering a town or village invariably erected 

 a cross the first thing they did. Tbe French missionaries, besides car- 

 rying prominently the cross as a jiart of their visible C(iuii)ment, did 

 their best to impress upon the natives its great importance. Conse- 

 quently we tind it prominent among aboriginal decorations; it is seen 

 on the wampum belt, upon inscribed shells, on pipes, etc. Cabeca de 

 Vaca, in his wonderful adventures among the people of the territory 

 then called Florida, cured the natives by making the sign of the cross. 

 In a mound within the limits of Chillicothe was found, "in a small 

 inclosure near by, a silver cross of French origin."- 



Upon another occasion "two silver crosses were taken in November, 

 1839, from a grave mound at Ooosawattee, old town in ^lurray County, 

 Georgia, associated with Indian implements,"' ' and other occurrences 

 could be enumerated showing the contemporaneity of the crosses with 

 pure savage conditions. 



"In a conference to make peace a single person is never sent; there 

 must be two; but depending ur)on the strength of those conferring 

 there may be fifteen or twenty. There is, however, one who delivers 

 the strings and belts of wampum; the others listen to his words and 

 remind him when he forgets something. One of the ambassadors car- 

 ries the ])eace pipe in advance to the Indians — tbe same as a flag of 

 truce is to the Europeans. The respect in which the embassy is held 

 is so great that a person disregarding it would not fail to be punished 

 by the Great Spirit. It is only used in negotiating treaties. This pipe, 

 called calumet by the French, usually bad a head of red marble, the 

 red color being the sign of blood. It is never sent as a peace offering 

 without being covered with white clay or chalk. Such a pipe head is 

 G to 8 inches wide and 3 inches high. The stem i^ of hard wood and 4 

 feet long, covered with beautiful bandages interwoven with white coral, 

 in which work the Indian women endeavor to show their skill. These 

 stems are often ornamented with porcupine quills, or green, yellow, or 

 white feathers. Near the village of tlie party opposed to them the 

 envoys commence to sing and dance, and are carried to the dwelling of 

 the head chief, where every attention is shown them so long as the 

 negotiations last. The opening of the proceedings is performed by the 

 head chief of the envoys taking a whiff from the peace pipe and blowing 



'J. Owen Dorsey, A Study of Siouau Cults, Eleventh Annual Keport of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology, p. 511. 



"Sqnier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 166, Smith- 

 sonian Contributions to Knowledge, I. 



•'Charles C. Jones, Silver Crosses from an Indian Grave-mound at Coosawatteo Old 

 Town, Murray County, Georgia, Smithsonian Ifeport, 1881, ]). 619. 



