Profiles in Pipes –– Ceremonial Pipes

TPLHistory

Few artifacts are more easily recognized and, yet, more misunderstood than the Native American “peace pipe.” While ceremonial pipes played a vital role in the cultures across North America for millennia, peace was just one of the many functions ceremonial pipes could serve. Indeed, no single word, style, or ceremony can accurately describe the myriad pipes different tribes and cultures have created in North America and the Caribbean.

The term peace pipe or “Calumet de Paix” became widespread after many years of interaction between Europeans and Native Americans in the New World. (Such interactions began early during the Age of Exploration. When Christopher Columbus arrived in Cuba, the Indigenous people there greeted him and his crew with gifts of tobacco.) Because these meetings often involved signing a treaty or ending hostilities, Europeans wrongly assumed that the pipes were solely designated to seal peace agreements. 

The truth is that ceremonial pipes did and still do hold a variety of purposes in Native American culture. The Oglala Lakota tribe, for instance, has at least seven different uses of the ceremonial pipe, including marking rites of passage or new familial bonds. 

Across cultures, ceremonial pipes were used for personal reflection and prayer as well as group-centered ceremonies. Indeed, tribes such as the Pawnee, Omaha, and Crow developed complex ritualistic dances to accompany pipe-smoking ceremonies. For many tribes, the ceremonial pipe was a sacred object that allowed them to communicate with powerful spirits. In addition, Native Americans also used pipes for social smoking in more casual settings.  

Perhaps unsurprisingly, pipe styles and preferences among Native Americans and First Nation Peoples vary widely. While the earliest known pipes were crafted from bone, Native American ceremonial pipes can be formed from clay, alabaster, or many different pipestones. The Sisseton Sioux created pipes made from Catlinite, while Mississippian tribes crafted “acorn-shaped” pipes from South Dakota red pipestone. Of course, individual pipes could be just as intricate and nuanced as they are today. Sitting Bull famously owned a three-foot-long pipe that featured carvings of a fish, the setting sun, and a bull’s horns along the stem. 

Not only did the type of pipe utilized by peoples of the “New World” differ from place to place, but so did the tobacco. Nicotiana rustica appeared mainly in the northern and eastern portions of North America, while its smoother-smoking cousin, Nicotiana tabacum, flourished in the south. Europeans quickly developed a taste for tobacco when they arrived in North America. So great was the demand for tobacco that Spain outlawed sharing seeds with non-Spaniards for a time. Eventually, it became an essential cash crop for imperial powers like Spain, Great Britain, France, and, later, the United States. 

Though the oldest Native American pipes date back to 9,000 BCE, traces of tobacco 3,000 years old have been found in clay pipes from Northern Alabama. Since then, it’s occupied an essential role in the societies of the North American continent.