608 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



ATLANTIC COAST PIPES. 



A most interesting type of pipe is found in the shell heaps south of 

 the Hudson, certainly as far as Maryland, and perhaps yet farther, 

 which appear related to certain tyj^es found in North Carolina, Georgia, 

 and Tennessee, through a territory which at the first advent of the 

 whites appears to have been inhabited by Algonquin, Siouan, and 

 Iroquoian tribes, a more critical study of which will possibly connect 

 them with pipes of the St. Lawrence River regions, especially those 

 pipes with flaring bowls resembling brass hunting horns. There is an 

 almost insurmountable difficulty in the study of any primitive handi- 

 work of the American Indians, owing to the meager records preserved 

 by those who came in first contact with them. From historical data 

 there is room to suspect that many expeditions had reached the shores 

 of what is now the United States and Canada between the years 1535 

 and 1630 of which we have no records. The extent of their trade may 

 possibly not have been far from the sight of the ocean, though from 

 the first arrival of the colonists, Spanish, French, English, Dutch, or 

 Swede, the trapper and trader sought the wilderness for skins. Of 

 these expeditions little is known, for none of them, if successful, would 

 inform his acquaintance of the rich fields of sport or trade, but saved 

 his knowledge for future profit to himself. Throughout the early 

 period the most bloodthirsty feuds were engendered between the tribes 

 by French, Spanish, and English in their efforts to retain the trade of 

 a tribe, or confederacy, or to divert it from their rivals. The proximity 

 of the Atlantic coast to the tribes west of the Alleghenies was offset by 

 the water transportation and short carries of the French from the St. 

 Lawrence, Avho did not hesitate, it has been said, to publish false maps 

 of the interior for the purpose of misleading the English. Lawson 

 says in 1700, and with full knowledge of the conditions then existing, 

 '" Tis a great misfortune that most of our travelers, who go to this vast 

 continent in America, are persons of the meaner sort, and generally, of 

 a very slender education; who being hired by the merchants to trade 

 amongst the Indians, in which voyages they often spend several years, 

 are yet, at their return incapable of giving any reasonable account 

 of what they met withal in those remote parts; though the country 

 abounds with curiosities worthy of a nice observation." ' 



ISTotwithstaudiug many interesting papers of those who imagine they 

 observe evidences in implements made by the American Indian indi- 

 cating left-handedness, Lawson observes of them, "When they cut with 

 a knife the edge is toward them, whereas, Ave always cut and whittle 

 from us. Nor did I ever see one of them left-handed." ^ 



' .John Lawson. The History of Carolhia, Preface, p. v, Loudou, 1714, reprint, 

 Raleigh, 1^60. 

 - Idem, p. 330. 



