AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 555 



regarding- Garangula, an Onondaga chief, wlio in 1684 sat at council 

 " with his pipe in his mouth and the great cahimet of peace before him/" 



"M. de La Barre, in conference with (iaranguhi at Kaihoga, asks him 

 to smoke the cahimet and to promise, in the name of the Senecas, Cayu- 

 gas, Onondagas, Mohawks, and Oneydoes, to leave the French King's 

 subjects unnujlested. If they do not so agree, he says, he will declare 

 Avar with them, and says this belt will confirm my words." Garangula, 

 the spirited sachem who was a leader among the Onondagas and one of 

 the head men of the Confederacy of the Five Nations, does not take 

 kindly to the terms, which he refuses in a spirited speech. He refers 

 to the calumet which the Five Nations had given the governor's prede- 

 cessor, and closes by the remark: "This belt preserves my words."' •^ 



The council here referred to grew out of trade jealousies more than 

 anything else, for the French were anxious to cause the Iroquois to trade 

 with them rather than the English, and the language employed upon 

 one side and the other was unmistakable in its significance. La Barre 

 informed the Indians that the Five Nations had robbed and abused 

 all the traders that were j)assing to the Illinois and to the other 

 nations — children of his king. Garangula was not to be outdone in 

 the force of language employed, and informed La Barre that he 

 thanked him in the name of the confederated tribes for bringing back 

 into their country the calumet which the predecessor of La Barre had 

 received from their hands. And referring to the protection of the cal- 

 umet, he informed the governor that it was happy for him "that you 

 left underground that murdering hatchet."^ 



Lahontau, in 1093, referring to the Indians making peace, says: "It 

 is never until after a long war that the savages try to enter into a 

 treaty, but after they see it is to their interest to make peace they send 

 five, ten, or twenty warriors to make peace proposals to their enemies. 

 Sometimes these envoys go by land, at other times by water, carrjang 

 always the great calumet of peace in the hand, after the manner of a 

 cornet carrying his standard."^ 



In all treaties and councils between the whites and Indians, the pipe 

 and wampum belt appear to go hand in hand. The pipe was a pre- 

 requisite to all functions with the Indians, whether among themselves 

 or with strangers, whereas, as has been observed, the belt was often 

 the witness of the specific contract. Its bands, beads, and color, the 

 very arrangement of its design, each conveyed a specific message; not 

 as a hieroglyph, for symbolism in this shape does not aj^pear to have 

 prevailed among the Indians using the belt, although they did at times 

 resort to a rude ideography or pictography on rocks, bark, and skins; 

 nor was it used as the quipu was said to be employed by the Peruvi- 

 ans and which could be read by certain persons learned in the art of 

 deciphering the knotted cords — an art by the way apparently not con- 



' Baron Lahontan, Some New Voyages into North America, I, p. 35, London, 1703. 

 ^Cadwallader Colden, History of the Five Nations of Canada, p. 65, London. 1724. 

 ^Idem, I, p. 68. 

 ■•Baron Lahontan, Memoirc; de rAmoriqiie Septentrionale, p. 187, Hague, 1703. 



