Pipestone Pipes
Stone pipes were long known among the prehistoric peoples of North America; specimens from 2,000 years ago have been found at Mound City in present-day Ohio. Digging at Pipestone’s quarry likely began in the 17th century, a time which coincided with the acquisition of metal tools from European traders. Carvers prized this durable yet relatively soft stone, which ranged in color from mottled pink to brick red. By all accounts this location came to be the preferred source of Pipestone among the Plains tribes. By about 1700, though, the Dakota Sioux controlled the quarries and distributed the stone only through trade.
By the time George Catlin arrived in Pipestone in 1836, the simple tubes of earlier times had developed into elbow and disk forms, complete with elaborate animal and human effigies. The Pawnee and Sioux were master effigy carvers. A popular pipe from was the T-shaped Calumet, which became widely known as peace pipes because they were the pipes whites usually encountered at treaty ceremonies.
Pipes became a source of income for their makers, thus significant beyond religious use. To protect their source, the Yankton Sioux secured free and unrestricted access by an 1858 treaty. Even as the quarry became increasingly lucrative, American settlement threatened to consume the square-mile Indian claim. Outsiders were digging new pits and extracting the sacred stone. In 1928 the Yanktons, now resettled on a reservation 150 miles away, sold their claim to the federal government. Pipestone National Monument was signed into existence in 1937 and opened to the public with quarrying limited to Indians.
Plains Indian culture has undergone radical change since the era of the free-ranging buffalo herds, yet pipecarving is by no means a lost art. Carvings today are appreciated as artworks as well as for ceremonial use. Once again, as commanded by the spirit bird in the Sioux story of creation, the Pipestone here is quarried by anyone of Indian ancestry. An age-old tradition continues in the modern world, ever changing yet firmly rooted in the past.
