Indians of North America -- Ohio; Mounds -- Ohio; Ohio -- Antiquities
The typical mound pipe is the Monitor form, as it may be termed,
possessing a short, cylindrical urn, or spool-shaped bowl, rising
from the center of a flat and slightly-curved base. [Footnote: For
examples of this form see Rau: Smithsonian Contributions to
Knowledge, No. 287, p. 47, Fig. 177.]
Accepting this statement as proof that the "Monitor" pipe is
generally understood to be the oldest type of the mound-builders'
pipe, it is easy to trace the modifications which brought into use
the simple form of the modern Indian pipe. For example, there is
one of the form shown in Fig. 5, from Hamilton County, Ohio;
another from a large mound in Kanawha Valley, West Virginia;
[Footnote: Science. 1884, vol. 3, p. 619.] several taken from
Indian graves in Essex County, Mass.; [Footnote: Abbott, Prim.
Industry, 1881, Fig. 313, p. 319; Bull. Essex Inst., vol. 3, 1872,
p. 123.] another found in the grave of a Seneca Indian in the
valley of the Genesee; [Footnote: Morgan, League of the Iroquois,
p. 356.] and others found by the representatives of the Bureau of
Ethnology in the mounds of western North Carolina.
[Illustration with caption: FIG. 5. Pipe from Hamilton County,
Ohio.]
So far, the modification consists in simply shortening the forward
projection of the stem or base, the bowl remaining perpendicular.
The next modification is shown in Fig. 6, which represents a type
less common than the preceding, but found in several localites,
as, for example, in Hamilton County, Ohio; mounds in Sullivan
County, east Tennessee (by the Bureau); and in Virginia.
[Footnote: Rau: Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, No. 287,
p. 50, Fig. 190.] In these, although retaining the broad or winged
stem, we see the bowl assuming the forward slope and in some
instances (as some of those found in the mounds in Sullivan
County, Tenn.) the projection of the stem is reduced to a simple
rim or is entirely wanting.
[Illustration with caption: FIG. 6. Pipe from Hamilton County,
Ohio.]
[Illustration with caption: FIG. 7. Pipe from Sullivan County,
Tennessee.]
The next step brings us to what may be considered the typical form
of the modern pipe, shown in Fig. 8. This pattern, according to
Dr. Abbott, [Footnote: Prim. Industry, 1861, p. 329.] is seldom
found in New England or the Middle States, "except of a much
smaller size and made of clay." He figures one from Isle of Wight
County, Va., "made of compact steatite." A large number of this
form were found in the North Carolina mounds, some with stems
almost or quite a foot in length.
[Illustration with caption: FIG. 8. Pipe from Caldwell County,
North Carolina.]
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