626 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



iudications beiug tbjit the custom of smokiuj? inevailed as far iiortli as 

 the iiritish pcssessions in the east and California in the west. 



Pipes are made of an endless variety of substances, such as wood, 

 bone, stone, antler, and metals, and combinations of such materials, 

 though the majority of pipes are made of chlorite or steatite, minerals 

 most suitable in every way for pipe manufacture. Specimens are 

 quite commonly found made from most unsuitable materials, such, for 

 example, as (piartzite and bone. A single specimen made from stone 

 coal occurs. 



The different tyi)es of Indian pipes would appear to be as various as 

 the material from which they were made, though practically all pipes 

 may be classified as belonging to one or other of about a dozen forms, 

 recognizable by the interior dimensions of the bowls and stems and 

 their proportions one to the other. In given cases these proportions 

 would naturally be governed by the snpjily of smoking materials or of 

 suitable stuff from which to make proper stems. There are some 

 exceptions to the rule, but they occur chiefly among the pipes of the 

 northwest coast of the Continent, where style seems to be governed 

 largely by the taste of the traveling public — the chief purchasers of 

 these pipes. The same cause may be responsible for material, as is 

 notably the case in walrus ivory pipes made and decorated by the 

 Eskimo. The correctness of the classification is proven by the fact 

 that pipes of similar type are found in contiguous areas with remarka- 

 ble regularity. 



One tyi)e of pipe alone is found to be common practically to the 

 whole Continent, and this type, a straight tube, is in form the most 

 primitive of any. Where perforated through stone they have been 

 drilled by means of the most primitive drill known, namely, a straight 

 shaft revolved between the palms of the hands or between the hand 

 and the workman's thigh. So far as known to the writer there is 

 scarcely an exception to this rule, the boring of these tubes being 

 started froiu each end. Both stem and bowl are subsequently enlarged 

 by gouging. On the Pacific coast stems of bone were inserted and held 

 in place by means of bitumen. As the Atlantic coast pipes show many 

 of identical shape, the presumption is that they also had similar stems 

 held in place in like numner or with gum. Again, these tubular pipes 

 are seldom decorated or finished with anything approaching a glass 

 jiolish until there is found on them carvings in the round, due to 

 modern ideas and methods of work and often the use of metal tools. 



There are evidences in the earliest illustrations of the pipe that it 

 was of tubular shai)e and smoked as one would smoke a straight tube; 

 that is, by throwing back the head and holding the pipe peri)endicu- 

 larly. Again, the use of the tubular pipe in certain aboriginal cere- 

 monies at the most solemn junctures would suggest its greater antiq- 

 uity over other forms, especially when we find great veneration paid 

 to the tube wliich is not given to other types of pipe. Certain tra- 



