536 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



Fig. 152. 



BICONICAL FEOG PIPE OF SANDSTONE. 



Branch County, Michigan. 



Cat. No. 42931, U.S.N. M. Collected by H. T. Woodman. 



liiia, Georgia, and Alabama, over to and down the Mississippi Eiver, 

 and up the same as far as Michigan, generally upon the eastern side of 

 the great river, through a territory familiar to the French from 1680 

 onward for nearly a century. Animal forms are ciuite common in this 



type, those of the human 

 being probably predomi- 

 nating ; some appear to be 

 totemic, while the artistic 

 merits of many are of a 

 character difficult to rec- 

 oncile with savage art. 

 These pipes are at times so 

 massive as almost to jus- 

 tify the term monumental 

 in referring to them, a re- 

 markable peculiarity being 

 that, with S(;arcely an ex- 

 ception, the creature faces 

 from instead of toward the 

 smoker, as is common with the mound pipes and the older catlinite 

 rectangular specimens. They vary from 3 to 8 inches in length or 

 height, and from 2 to 4 inches in width. Among the animal forms 

 none is more common than the frog. 



A pipe of the biconical type from Algansee, Branch County, Michi- 

 gan, collected by H. T. Woodman (tig. 152) is about 1 inches long and 

 almost as wide, and is 2^ inches high. 

 The legs and eyes are represented in low 

 relief, the bowl and stem holes are both 

 pecked in, and each has a surface diam- 

 eter of 1^ inches. The pipe is made from 

 a compact and hard, close-grained sand- 

 stone, shaped by means of a stone ham- 

 mer, and though the surface has been 

 subsequently smoothed the hammer 

 marks in jjlaces are quite distinct. 



In fig. 153 is shown a pipe from the 

 Cherokee Nation, collected by Mr. J. A. 

 Paxton. The frog has been carved some- 

 what more in the round, the texture of 

 the stone appearing so like the last fig- 

 ure as to raise a suspicion that both 

 came from the same locality. The stem 

 hole of this pipe is scarcely half an inch in depth, and that of the bowl 

 hardly over seven-eighths of an inch deep, the stem being smaller than 

 the bowl opening, the shallowness of the same making it extremely 

 difficult to attach a pipestem. The base of this pipe has the same 



Fig. 153. 

 BICONICAL FROG PIPE. 



Cherokee Nation. 



Cat. No.7331, U.S.N.M. Collected by J. A. Paxton. 



