

43 2 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Garoutagwanni, to take the calumet from any one who smokes to- 

 bacco to smoke it in turn; Wagonroutagwas, that I may smoke it 

 thy calumet, but it is not mentioned as of ceremonial importance. 

 It is much the same in the Jesuit Relations and the earlier colonial 

 documents of New York. The Relation of 1646 refers to its com- 

 mon but not prominent use in councils, in describing the visit of 

 some Mohawks to Canada : " The savages make no assembly unless 

 with a calumet of tobacco in the mouth, and as fire is necessary to 

 take the tobacco, they light some almost always in their assemblies." 



La Salle held a council with the Senecas in 1669, and Gallinee 

 described this and the informal way of smoking, as before quoted. 

 Each man had his own pipe and passed it to no one else. He 

 lighted it at once and smoked throughout the council. In these 

 and other instances the French often called any pipe a calumet, as 

 in the account of Iroquois customs in 1666, where it is said that 

 when a man dies " they paint red calumets, calumets of peace on 

 the tomb." When Count Frontenac came to Lake Ontario to build 

 a fort in 1673, ne was me t by 60 Iroquois sachems, and " after hav- 

 ing sat and as is their custom, smoked for some time, one of them " 

 made an address. Frontenac replied that he had made a fire where 

 they could smoke and he could talk to them. The inference is that 

 the smoking was pleasant and social, but not in the least ceremonial. 



About the same time Father Milet described some interesting 

 Iroquois customs, and said that at formal friendly meetings the 

 visitors kindle the woodside fire " in sign of peace, and are met by 

 the ancients of the town. After having smoked and received 

 compliments they are led to the cabin assigned them." In these 

 cases there seems no definite ceremonial use, and in fact it was in 

 1673 that Father Marquette gave the full account of the pipe of 

 peace and its solemn use, as he found it among the Illinois. The 

 intimate relations of the French and western Indians brought it 

 sooner into prominence in Canada than in New York. On the 

 whole Charlevoix's statement, made in 1721, may be fully accepted: 

 "It is more in use among the southern and western nations than 

 among the eastern and northern." Lafitau said much the same. 

 Roger Williams, Capt. John Smith and others, mention no cere- 

 monial use of the calumet along the Atlantic coast. With the be- 

 ginning of the 18th century it appears occasionally in reports of 



