The Archaeology of the Yakima ValleySmith, Harlan Ingersoll
History
The Archaeology of the Yakima Valley
Smith, Harlan Ingersoll
Yakima River Valley (Wash.) -- Antiquities
[Illustration: Fig. 110. Pipe made of Soft Sandstone. Locality Unknown.
1/2 nat. size. (Drawn from a sketch. Original in the collection of Mr.
York.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 111. Pipe made of Steatite. Locality Unknown. 1/2
nat. size. (Drawn from a sketch. Original in the collection of Mr.
York.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 112. Pipe made of Soft Sandstone. Locality Unknown.
1/2 nat. size. (Drawn from a sketch. Original in the collection of Mr.
York.)]
The second of these specimens, shown in Fig. 111, is a simple elbow pipe
with the angle between the axis of the bowl and the stem, slightly
greater than 90 degrees. It is also in the collection of Mr. York and is
made of steatite, which he calls Wenatchee pipe stone. The outer opening
of the bowl is slightly larger than that of the stem. The third
specimen, shown in Fig. 112, is also of the simple elbow type and the
axis of the bowl is nearly at right angles to that of the stem. It is in
the collection of Mr. York, and is made of soft grit or sandstone of a
yellowish gray color. In the Thompson River region to the north,
according to Mr. Teit, there seems to be little doubt but that the
tubular pipe has been supplanted by the simple bowl and elbow
types.[338] This change may have been brought about by the copying of
the early trader's pipes but Mr. Teit believes it more likely to have
come from influence from the southeast, passed from tribe to tribe about
the same time as the advent of the horse or a little later. The Thompson
River Indians tell him that the tubular pipe continued to be the one in
common use as long as native tobacco only was used, but after the
introduction of manufactured tobacco the elbow type came to be
exclusively used because very much better adapted for holding the
latter kind of tobacco. In the Nez Perce region to the east, pipes with
rectangular bowls were found.[339] One of these bowls has an incised
design representing a tomahawk, which with the character of other
incisions on it suggest that it is modern. Only two finds of elbow pipes
have been reported on the coast. These,[340] which were of fragments,
were said by Mr. Edmond Croft to have been found by him in a shell heap
near Markham on Grey's Harbor, Washington. They are made of fine-grained
sandstone of a gray color. Both were apparently intended to be used with
a wooden stem and one of them has a ventral mid-rib from the mouth of
the stem nearly to the base of the bowl which reminds one somewhat of a
similar appendage on the pipe from the Yakima Valley shown in Fig. 113
and one from the Thompson Indians.[341] My supposition has been that
they reached the coast recently from this general region possibly by way
of the Columbia or were taken there by employees of the fur companies in
early historic times.
[338] Teit, (a), Figs. 271 and 306.
[339] Spinden, p. 188, Figs. 7 and 8, Plate IX.
[340] Smith, (b). Fig. 140.
[341] Teit. (a), Fig. 306.
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