AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. G21 



Tobacco bad a superstitious value, according" to Dr. Everard, who iu 

 1659 said: "The devil was much afraid of it, as I was iuforined by one 

 born in England of Spanish parentage.'" 



Lawson, in his history of Carolina, says: "The women smoke tobacco; 

 they have pipes whose heads are cut out of stone and will hold an 

 ounce of tobacco and some much less." ^ 



The writer has seen a clay pipe from (leorgia, the bowl of which 

 would readily hold an ounce of tobacco. That the Steiner i)ipes, which 

 were found in and near the Etowah Mound, Georgia, and those found 

 iu the Lenoir bui ial place, North Carolina, as well as certain specimens 

 found elsewhere in Georgia and Tennessee, whether made of stone or 

 l)ottery, were nuide by the same people there does not appear reason to 

 doubt. From their striking resemblance to each other they must have a 

 common origin. 



Gen. Gates P. Thruston, speaking of pipestems, says they are of 

 uniform diameter, "for a closely-fitting reed or cane stem probably 

 belongs to a type comparatively modern, as this appears to be the 

 usual stem hole drilled by the historic Indians." ^ 



Bartram, about 1773, who was well acquainted with the natives of 

 the region we have been discussing, says: "As to mechanic arts or 

 manufactures, they have scarcely anything worth observation. The 

 men perform nothing except erecting their mean habitations, forming 

 their canoes, stone i)ipes, etc."'' 



In 1737 Brickell said of the North Carolina Indians : " In general, they 

 are great smokers of tobacco (in their language 'uppowoc'), which 

 they tell us they had before the Europeans made any discoveries in 

 that country, and although they are great smokers, yet they are never 

 known to chew or make it into snuff, but will very freely take a pinch 

 of snuff out of a European's box." •' 



The color of the chlorite of which many of these pipes are made indi- 

 cates their form to be derived from copper originals. The embossed 

 eyes are identical with what would be produced by hammering thin 

 sheet copper, though there may have been and probably were wooden 

 l)ipes of the different kinds which have been used in different parts of 

 the continent. 



Bartram describes the Cherokee smoking custom of a century ago in 

 the Southern States. He says: "After partaking of this simple but 

 healthy and liberal collation and the dishes cleared off", tobacco and 

 pipes were brought and the chief, tilling one of them, whose stem, 

 about 4 feet long, was sheathed in a beautiful speckled snake's skin 

 and adorned with feathers and strings of wampum, lights it and 

 smokes a few whiffs, pufltiug the smoke first toward the sun, then to 



•Dr. J^verard, Panacea, or the Universal Medicine, Dedicatory, London, 1659. 

 -History of North Carolina, p. 56. 

 ■''Antiqnities of Tennessee, p. 179, Cincinnati, 18W0. 



^William Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina, (ieoigia. East and 

 West Florida, p. 511, Dul)lin, 1793. 

 •^ John BrickeJl, The Natural History of North Carolina, p. 287, Dublin, 1737. 



