Peace pipe

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A Lakota (Sioux) "peace pipe" pipestem, without the pipe itself, displayed at the United States Library of Congress

A peace pipe, also called a calumet or medicine pipe, is a ceremonial smoking pipe used by many Native American tribes, traditionally as a token of peace.

A common material for calumet pipe bowls is red pipestone or catlinite, a fine-grained easily-worked stone of a rich red color of the Coteau des Prairies, west of the Big Stone Lake in South Dakota. The quarries were formerly neutral ground among warring tribes; many sacred traditions are associated with the locality.

A common misconception of the peace pipe is what, exactly, was in it. The most common and sacred things smoked out of the pipe was Tobacco. Tobacco was sacred to the many different Native American tribes. A prayer would be said to each of the four directions as well as mother earth and father sky as they filled the pipe. After filling the pipe, some tobacco would be sprinkled on the ground.

Another interesting side note; Sometimes to show respect smoke would be blown into ones face. Captives would often times take this the wrong way, but it was actually a sign of kindness or respect.

1 Pipestone varieties
2 Traditional pipemaking tools
3 See also
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Pipestone varieties

Uncompahgre Ute Salmon Alabaster Ceremonial Pipe. Ute pipe styles are similar to those of the plains indians, with notable differences. Ute pipes are thicker and use shorter pipestems than the plains style and more closely resemble the pipe styles of their Northern neighbors, the Shoshone.

Several Native tribes make ceremonial pipes. The types of stones used vary by tribe and locality. Some of the known types of pipe stone and pipe materials are:

Clay - The Cherokee and Chickasaw both fashioned pipes made from fired clay that also employed small reed cane pipestems made from river cane. These pipes were made from aged river clay hardened in a hot fire.

Red Pipestone - Catlinite is an iron-rich, reddish, soft quartzite slate typically excavated from below groundwater level, as the stone erodes rapidly when exposed to the weather and outside air. Red pipestone was used by the Eastern Tribes, Western and Great Basin Tribes, and the Plains Tribes, with sources of the stone in Tennessee (South Central), minnesota (Pipestone), and Utah (Delta, Uinta). sacred pipestone comes from pipestone minnesota, it is softer than any other catlinite.

Mississippian and Eastern Woodlands style "acorn" pipe. These pipes have been found in Mississippian mounds in the Eastern United States. This acorn pipe is made from South Dakota red pipestone.

Blue Pipestone - Also a form of catlinite, blue pipestone was used almost predominantly by the Plains Tribes for ceremonial pipes. Deposits of the stone are also found in South Dakota. The use of blue pipestone coincided with the arrival of the horse among the Plains Tribes.

Bluestone - a hard, greenish-blue quartzite stone from the southern Appalachian Mountains. After being worked, it takes on a decidedly greenish cast. This stone was used by several Eastern Woodlands tribes for pipemaking. Cherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw made pipes from bluestone. Several ancient Mississippian bluestone pipes have been discovered.

Salmon Alabaster - the Uncompahgre Ute made beautiful ceremonial pipes from salmon alabaster mined in central Colorado.

Uncompahgre Ute Salmon Alabaster Ceremonial Pipe with Pipestem.

Green Pipestone - A white on green marbled cupric pipestone found in Wyoming and South Dakota and used by the Shoshone, Ute, and Plains Tribes for personal and ceremonial pipes. This stone was also used to carve sacred effigies and religious items.

Black Pipestone (South Dakota) - a soft, brittle, white on black marbled pipestone found in South Dakota and used by the Plains Tribes for ceremonial pipes.

Black Pipestone (Uinta) - an extremely hard black quartzite slate which has undergone metamorphic compression and is found in the southeastern drainage of the Uinta Mountains in Utah and Colorado. This stone was used by the Great Basin Tribes for war clubs and beautiful pipes that are jet black with a high gloss when polished. Stones which had tumbled down creeks and drainages were always selected, since these stones typically contained no cracks or defects.

[edit] Traditional pipemaking tools

Both raw and cut and slabbed high grade Red Pipestone from Delta, Utah.

Native Americans who learned the use of the bow and arrow rapidly advanced the concept in early pipemaking and employed bow drills that used hard white quartz points which, when combined with water, could bore out even the hardest of pipestones.

Early Native Americans employed moistened rawhide stips rolled in crushed white quartz and stretched with a bow handle to shape and rough the pipes. The efficiency of such bow stone saws in cutting and slabbing a large piece of red pipestone is quite surprising given their seeming simplicity. Pipes were also shaped and roughed with hard sandstones, afterward polished with water, then sanded with progressively finer and finer abrasive grit and animal hide, finally being rubbed with fat or facial oils to complete polishing.