pipe style is the so-called calumet or "peace pipe" associated with the nineteenth-century Plains Indians. Its large bowl was usually made of wellcarved catlinite and was frequently inlaid with metal. The bowl was fitted to a long and sometimes elaborately carved wooden stem which was often decorated with quillwork or feathers. Each of the two major components, the pipe bowl and the stem - more properly called calumet from the French word for reed - had great significance. The meshing of symbolic elements which produced the peace pipe seems to have been accomplished at a relatively late date. Frequent references to calumet pipes occur only after the latter half of the seventeenth century when historical documentation reveals the rapid diffusion of this instrument and its accompanying ceremonies among the tribes east of the Rockies. The use of ceremonial tobacco pipes to seal pacts and arbitrate disputes became a widespread practice. Plains tribes, such as the Kiowa, made smoking the calumet pipe a legal act, binding participants to their word. European explorers who noticed that solemn agreements made in this manner were seldom broken, coined the term "peace pipe" to describe the device. As late as 1977, more than a This typicalPlains stylecatlinitepipe datesfrom the nineteenth century.It restson a contemporaryleatherpipe bag with extensiveglass bead and porcupinequill decoration. Lengthy17.5 centimeters. century after the Kiowa and Comanche had smoked a pipe together to initiate a successful intertribal peace, the Comanche and Utes symbolically closed their ancient animosity with an appropriate ceremony that included puffing on a sacred pipe filled with tobacco. Detail of a painting byPeter Rindisbacher(1806-1834),an early artist of the Red River region, showingnorthern woodlandIndians smokingin their skin tipl. The pipe in use on the left was popularizedby the Micmacand other Algonkiantribes; the catlinitebowlon the right is inlaid with lead decoration. 1980 February January/ 19