586 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



of wood fitted to elder stems, but the best ones, of stone, elegantly carved, 

 were of Haida manufacture and are obtained from the north.' 



While there is good reason to doubt if the American Indian on any 

 part of the continent ever knew of the use of the bow or pump drill be- 

 fore the advent of Europeans there is much evidence that throughout 

 the continent fire to light the pipe was made by twirling one stick upon 

 another, and in the Southwest there is evidence that fire was made by 

 plowing or rubbing one stick back and forth in the groove of another. 



Uind says of the pipes of theBabeen Indians, "While they exhibit a 

 much higlier degree of art than we should expect to find among such a 

 savage race, they are illustrations of their imitative power and ingen. 

 ions workmanship. The grotes(jue devices with which their pipes are 

 ornamented can generally be traced to objects which they have seen 

 since they became familiar with the white traders belonging to the 

 Hudson Bay Company on the jSTorthwest Coast." ^ 



Gilbert Malcolm Sproat says: "The Aht Indians are fond of tobacco, 

 but they have no medicine pipe, nor do I think they have among them 

 the marked superstitious j)ipe usuages by which most of the IS^orth 

 American Indian tribes are distinguished. They formly had plain 

 cedar pipes (rosh-kuts) devoid of ornament, but there were also to be 

 found in all the tribes the ornamental bluestone (Tshimpean) pipe which 

 had been obtained in traffic with the Northern Indians. The present 

 Aht name for tobacco (Quish-shah) is their word for smoke. Tobacco 

 has been so long known to the natives that they can hardly explain 

 what material they smoked before they had it, but they probably in 

 former times made use solely of the leaves of the small shrub which is 

 to this day mixed with tobacco in their pipes for the purpose of dimin- 

 ishing the intoxicating effect. It is customary after meals to pass the 

 Ijipe around among the guests." ' 



That smoking tobacco is a modern practice with certain tribes 

 there can be little doubt, and is indicated in the account of Lewis 

 and Clarke, who said of the natives on one part of the Columbia 

 Eiver: "During these preparations he smok.ed with those about him 

 who would accept tobacco, but very few were desirous of smoking, a 

 custom which is not general among them, and chiefly used as a matter 

 of form in great ceremonies."^ 



These people probably smoked other plants than tobacco, though to 

 what extent it is difficult to say. According to George Gibbs, the 

 Tinneh or Chippewayan Indians of British and Russian America 

 between the Mackenzie and Peel rivers and the Yukon and banks of 

 the Porcupine, about the sixty-eighth degree of latitude, make "no 

 intoxicating driidis whatever, but are passionately fond of tobacco. 

 This taste thev of course learned of the whites. Most of the Kutchius 



' H. H. Baucroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, I, p. 237, Sau Francisco, 1874. 



'^ Henry Youlo Hind, A Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition 

 of 18.^7, II, p. 140, London, 1860. 



' .Scenes and Studies of Savai^e Life, p. 269, London, 1868, 



< Lewis and Clarke's Expedition to the Kocky Mountains, II, p. 15, Philadelphia, 

 1814. See also J. H. McCulloh, Researches, p. 91, Baltimore, 1829. 



