MOKE INDIAN PIPES. 137 



and hastily made for immediate use ; and even among these 

 remote tribes of the flat head Indians, the common clay pipe 

 of the fur trader begins to supersede such native arts. Among 

 the Assinaboin Indians a material is used in pipe manufac- 

 ture altogether peculiar to them. It is a fine marble, much too 

 hard to admit of minute carving, but taking a high polish. 

 This is cut into pipes of graceful form, and made so extremely 

 thin, as to be almost transparent, so that when lighted the 

 glowing tobacco shines through, and presents a singular 

 appearance when in use at night or in a dark lodge. 

 Another favorite material employed by the Assinaboin 

 Indians is a coarse species of jasper also too hard to admit of 

 elaborate ornamentation." 



This also is cut into various simple but tasteful designs, 

 executed chiefly by the slow and laborious process of rub- 

 bing it down with other stones. The choice of the material 

 for fashioning the favorite pipe is by no means invariably 

 guided by the facilities which the location of the tribe 

 affords. A suitable stone for such a purpose will be picked 

 up and carried hundreds of miles. Mr. Kane informs me 

 that, in coming down the Athabaska River, when drawing 

 near its source in the Rocky Mountains, he observed his 

 Assinaboin guides select the favorite bluish jasper from 

 among the water- worn stones in the bed of the river, to carry 

 home for the purpose of pipe manufacture, although they 

 were then fully five hundred miles from their lodges. Such 

 a traditional adherence to a choice of material peculiar to a 

 remote source, may frequently prove of considerable value as 

 a clue to former migrations of the tribes. Both the Cree 

 and the Winnebago Indians carve pipes in stone of a form 

 now more frequently met with in the Indian curiosity stores 

 of Canada and the States than any other specimens of native 

 carving. The tube, cut^at a sharp right angle with the cylin- 

 drical bowl of the pipe, is ornamented with a thin vandyked 

 ridge, generally perforated with a row of holes, and standing 

 up somewhat like the dorsal fin of a fish. The Winnebagos 

 also manufacture pipes of the same form, but of a smaller 

 size, in lead, with considerable skill. 



Among the Cree Indians a double pipe is occasionally in 



