hooney] SACRED PIPE OF THE SIOUX 1063 



one another, if they would be happy, and when they listened to her words 

 and accepted her teachings, she gave them the sacred medicine pipe 

 to smoke thenceforth in their councils as ;i perpetual reminder of the 

 peace covenant of the Lakota. Her mission now ended, she said she 

 tnusl leave them, and although they begged her earnestly to stay with 

 them, she could not tarry longer, but disappeared as suddenly and 

 mysteriously as she had come. 



A variant of this legend is given by Colonel Mallery in his paper in 

 the Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, where it is illus- 

 trated by a colored plate from a picture by the Indian story teller. 

 According to this version, the pipe maiden was the mysterious white 

 Buffalo Cow, and brought, with the pipe, a package of four grains 

 of maize of different colors. This corn sprang from the milk which 

 dropped from her udder, and was thus, with the flesh of the buffalo 

 itself, appointed from the beginning to be the food of all the red tribes. 

 The seeming snakes about her waist and ankles were really blades of 

 grass (corn?). She taught the people to call her "grandmother." a 

 reverential title among Indians, and after leading them to her relatives, 

 the buffalo, she faded from their sight as they stood gazing at her. 



The pipe holds an important part in the mythology and ritual of 

 almost all our tribes, east and west, and no great ceremony is complete 

 and no treaty was ever ratified without it. It is generally symbolic of 

 peace and truth. As a peace emblem, it was formerly carried by every 

 bearer of a friendly message from one tribe to another and was smoked 

 in solemn ratification of treaties, the act of smoking being itself in the 

 nature of an oath. Among the prairie tribes an individual accused of 

 crime is offered the sacred pipe, and if he accepts it and smokes he is 

 declared innocent, as no Indian would dareto smoke it if guilty. The 

 ordinary ceremonial pipe of the prairie tribes is made of the red stone, 

 known as catlinite. from the famous pipestone quarry in Minnesota in 

 the old country of the Sioux. The peace pipe of the Cherokee was 

 made of a white stone, somewhat resembling talc, from a quarry near 

 Knoxville, Tennessee. It is said to have had seven stem holes, 

 emblematic of the seven clans of the Cherokee, and was smoked by 

 seven counselors at the same time. In every case the tribe has a 

 legend to account for the origin of the pipe. A flat pipe is the tribal 

 "medicine" of the Arapaho, and is still preserved with the northern 

 band in Wyoming. (See Arapaho songs 1 and 2.) Besides the stone 

 pipe, there are also in use pipes of clay or bone, as well as cigarettes, 

 but as a rule no ceremonial character attaches to these. In ceremonial 

 smoking the pipe is passed around the circle of councilors, each of 

 whom takes only a few whiffs and then hands it to his neighbor. Each 

 one as he receives the pipe offers it first to the sun, holding the bowl 

 up toward the sky and saying, "Grandfather, smoke;" then to the 

 earth, the fire, and perhaps also to each of the four cardinal points 

 and to one or another of their mythologic heroes. Among the Kiowa 



