MORE 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 isa 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 sov*ce, 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 
