Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1980 - 22

that ranged from preparing the ground to processing and using the harvested leaves.
This latter-day fluorescence of traditional pipes
corresponded to a general decline and overall
fragmentation of other native lifeways. During this
same period intertribal contact also increased- circumstances largely precipitated by tribal dislocation and other direct and not so direct trends of
European impact. The conscious attempt to preserve traditional elements of pipe and tobacco
practices countered the challenge presented by the
products of European commerce. Pipemaking became an increasingly specialized craft concentrated
in the hands of a few traditionalists who employed
the proper methods, materials and motifs. Late
period pipe styles frequently made use of stylized
decorations and naturalistic or anthropomorphic
effigy forms which may have conveyed some mystical significance. Archaeologists have been able to
determine the trade routes of these traditional
items through lithic studies of the stone pipes as
well as contemporary accounts. These sources indicate a rejuvenated long-distance trade in smoking paraphernalia between native groups.
During the eighteenth century, formal pipe
usage - particularly etiquette and rituals pertaining
to the calumet - spread across the Continent along
major waterways and communication routes. Most
of these ceremonies can be traced back to the
northern prairies. Perhaps because of its primacy
in these regions, the handsome inverted T-shaped
catlinite bowl became the most widely recognized
form of calumet pipe. As the calumet's popularity
swept across native America, missionaries began to
denounce idolatory at work, while others, recognizing its great potential, seized the opportunity to
profit. Jesuits attempted to stem the tide of native
pipe ceremonialism with little success; meanwhile
some of the Northwest and Upper Missouri fur
traders carried raw catlinite between the growing
numbers of tribes who desired red stone pipes. By
the mid-nineteenth century, after the Minnesota
Sioux were forced to temporarily relinquish the
famous quarry, the stone came under still more
direct non-Indian control. But even after rights to
the source were restored by treaty in 1859, the

Sioux consented to quarry and sell the stone to
profiteers, who used lathes and other machinery
to turn out quantities of catlinite pipes and trinkets for the Indian trade. Between 1864 and
1866, the Northwest Fur Company alone had
manufactured and sold nearly 2,000 pipes to
Indians, and by 1892 it was estimated that less
than one percent of catlinite goods were of
native manufacture.
As the white man commercialized these products, the sacred red stone pipe probably came to
mean less and less within the native context. Possibly it was for this reason that Blackfoot informants told Smithsonian ethnologist John C. Ewers
in the 1940's that catlinite pipes obtained in trade
from the Sioux had been smoked for pleasure
among their people, but were not used in ceremonies. Although cigarettes had long since superseded the stone pipe for pleasure smoking by the
time of Ewers's visit, the Blackfoot elders still considered their own local native-made stone pipes to
be the standard ritual equipment. Nevertheless,
after meeting with nearly a dozen pipemakers
who survived on reservations in Montana and Alberta, Ewers could trace a reluctant but inexorably
growing detachment from traditional pipemaking
methods through the successive generations. The
older pipemarkers adhered more closely to conservative methods and styles than their younger
counterparts, preferring a fragment of sharpened
hoop iron to modern steel drills, and the use of
natural sandstone or abrasive rush stems to commercial sandpaper.
Today a scant handful of pipemakers continues to produce these instruments primarily for
native American use. A few other craftmakers associated with the Upper Midwest Indian Cultural
Center also exercise their legal privilege to make
use of the catlinite in the Pipestone National
Monument. Employing simple carpentry tools,
they create pipe bowls and small carvings for sale
mainly to tourists and collectors. However commercial this work may be, it maintains a venerable
craft and provides a tangible link to the past. But
it is merely a vestige of the rich pipe tradition that
flourished during the earlier history of America.

For Further Reading on native pipemaking:
John C. Ewers, "Blackfoot Indian Pipes and
Pipemaking," Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin
186 (1963): 29-61; Indian Art in Pipestone: George
Catliris Portfolio in the British Museum (Smithsonian
Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 1979).
On pipes and rituals: Joseph D. McGuire,
"Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American
Aborigines," Report of the U.S. National Museum

(1897):35 1-645; William A. Turnbaugh, "Tobacco, Pipes, Smoking, and Rituals Among the
Indians of the Northeast," Archaeological Societyof
Virginia Bulletin 30 (1975): 59-71; "Calumet Ceremonialism as a Nativistic Response," American Antiquity 44 (1979):685-691; George A. West, "Tobacco, Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Indians," Milwaukee Public Museum Bulletin 17
(1934): 1-994.

ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1980

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