AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 623 

 SUMMARY. 



The rich collectious in the IT. S. National Museum of pipes of Ameri- 

 can aborigines, both ancient and modern, suggested this pa[)er. These 

 collections were made from the graves of the Indians, by contributions 

 from public-spirited citizens anxious to preserve records of the natives 

 and of their manners and customs, in addition to which modern specimens 

 have been obtained by purchase from the natives themselves. As a 

 conseiiuence, the genuineness of these pipes may, it is believed, be relied 

 upon. That data necessary to as perfect an understanding as i)08sible 

 should be obtained, specimens in other public museums and in private col- 

 lections were, so far as possible, separately examined; and when this was 

 not convenient, the desired information was obtained by correspondence. 

 Few if any works have been written on the subject, yet many papers 

 relating to it have been published in magazines and periodicals, and 

 most works referring to early American travels have valuable references 

 to the smoking customs or pipes of the natives. These have all, so far 

 as possible, been consulted and referred to in the progress of the work, 

 which has extended over a period of three years. The writer trusts that 

 but few important references have been overlooked in the mass of liter- 

 ature consulted. It is hoi)ed that the paper includes sufticient material 

 for intelligent criticism of the correctness of opinions expressed, which 

 at times are in conflict with accepted theories. 



The subject was begun with no other view than to describe American 

 pipes and smoking customs; the study of the subject has apparently 

 developed information regarding manufacture of pipes, and consequently 

 of other stone, bone, wood, metal, and i:)ottery objects, that it is thought 

 may be of interest in the general investigation of American archaeology. 



There has been undoubtedly a tendency to attribute great age to all 

 American Indian grave finds, a view apparently contradictory to the 

 results of careful inspection of many of the objects unearthed. 



Smoke in some form, even that inhaled and exhaled through tubes, 

 is shown to have been employed in Europe and in Asia from an antiq- 

 uity long preceding the Christian era. In North America the smok- 

 ing customs of the natives antedate the arrival of the whites on the 

 continent, and from the similarity both of smoking customs and of the 

 tubes employed in smoking in widely separated parts of the country, 

 there is every indication that they must have prevailed for centuries. 



In Europe, Asia, and America, up to a period i^robably as recent as 

 the first half of the seventeenth century, the employment of smoke 

 appears to have been chiefly, if not entirely, due to its supposed medic- 

 inal properties, added to which the Indians used it in their functions 

 of every kind, attaching at times mysterious i^roperties to the plants 

 from which the smoke was produced. The ofleriugs of incense by the 

 Aztecs to the Spanish invaders under Oortez were in many instances 

 similar to the familiar pipe customs of the Indian, and pipes of like 



