I 



AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 551 



sons who trod tbe soil of tliose States bordering the Great Lakes. It 

 ^vas probably from such persons that the Susquehannocks obtained the 

 articles of European manufacture; found in their possession at the head 

 of Chesapeake Bay in 1G08, probably by way of Lake Ontario and 

 across from some of its afHuents down the Susquehanna. Missionaries, 

 according to Caleb Atwater, " were seut to Onoudaga in 1<!54. From 

 this time forward the French are known to have traversed that part of 

 Ohio which borders on Lake Erie and the Oliio Kiver." ' 



The missionaries were early in the field, but it appears natural to 

 suppose that they would select those territories which offered the most 

 promising fields of work. This information would naturally be imparted 

 by trappers and traders. Lafitau says: "Father Marquette, a Jesuit 

 missionary to Canada, embarked with Sieur Joliet, a French Canadian, 

 to discover the western sea and to attempt to find a way from Canada 

 to China, and was the first of the French to penetrate to the Mississippi 

 River. This was the 17th of June, 1673 — that is to say, six or seven 

 years before La Salle went to take possession of the country in the 

 King's name. They followed the Wisconsin Kiver until it fell into a 

 larger river about 42^° of north latitude. They dropped with the cur- 

 rent to within two or three days of the Gulf of Mexico, but noticing 

 thej^ were going from their course and fearing the Spanish, returned by 

 way of the Illinois to Missilimackinack " (crossing to the lake at the 

 portage about Chicago). It is in the relation of the voyage of Father 

 Marquette down the Mississippi that he mentions first the calumet of 

 peace, and as he is the first who speaks of it, he is also the one who 

 speaks best. He says : 



It was the 25th of Jiiue the ludians, having recognizefl them as Europeans, seut 

 foui' old men to speak with them. Two of them carried pipes to smoke tobacco in; 

 they were highly ornamented and adorned with feathers of different sorts. They 

 walked solemuly and raised their pipes toward the sun; they appeared to present it 

 to him to smoke without, liowever, saying a word. They were quite slow in passing 

 over the short distance from the village to them. Having reached them they stopped 

 and looked at them with attention. The Father, reassured by thiS ceremony, spoke 

 first to them and asked who they were; to which they answered they were Illinois, 

 and to guarantee peace they presented their pipes to smoke; then they invited them 

 to enter their village. One should not refuse the pipe unless he would be taken for 

 an enemy, but it is enongh to make out he is smoking. It is sufficient if one carries 

 the calumet with him to show it, by which means he may walk in safety among 

 enemies who, in the midst of fighting, will lower their arms to one who shows it. 

 It was for this reason the Illinois gave this pipe as a safeguard among the nations 

 through which they had to journey. There is a calumet for peace and one for war. 

 They use them to end their differences, for streugthening alliances, and to communi- 

 cate with strangers. 



It is made of a red stone polished like marble, and pierced so that one end serves 

 to receive the tobacco, and the other has a socket for a handle, which is a stick 2 feet 

 long, as large as an ordinary cane, and pierced through the middle. It is ornamented 

 with the head and neck of different birds of the most beautiful plumage, to which 



' Caleb Atwater, Description of the Antiquities of the State of Ohio, Archa-ologia 

 Americana, I, p. 116. 



