INDIAN SMOKERS. 39 



swallowed by serpents and monsters; an extraordinary 

 jumble of human and animal form ; occasionally an 



European appears among them in his round hat and 

 tail coat, which never looks more ridiculous than 

 when it is exhibited by the "native artists" of the 

 Northern Pacific. Large and unwieldy as these pipes 

 appear, they have but a very small aperture for 

 tobacco, as may be seen in the upper portion of the 

 woodcut given above/ 1 



Catlin says, in his Letters on the North American 

 Indians, 1841, they are all excessive smokers, and 

 many of them would seem to be smoking one -half of 

 their lives.f He thus describes their pipe-making : — 



" The Indians shape out the bowls of their pipes 

 from the solid stone, which is not quite as hard as 



* A savage in want of his pipe has been known to dig a small hole in 

 the ground, light his tobacco in it, and draw the smoke through a reed. 



+ When they can get no tobacco, they smoke weeds or leaves, and bark 

 of trees which are narcotics ; these they sometimes dry or pulverise and 

 carry in pouches, smoking it to great excess : this is called KnicJc tineck. 

 A peculiar expedient resorted to by them, when they undertake a long jour- 

 ney, and are like to be destitute of provisions, is to mix the juice of tobacco 

 with powdered shells, in the form of little balls, which they keep in their 

 mouths, and the gradual solution serves to counteract the uneasy craving 

 of the stomach. 



