A Unique Obtuse Angle Pipe
The ancient Indians throughout the Americas smoked tobacco and other plants and herbs probably for pleasure as well as for ceremonial/religious purposes. In the land that would eventually become North Carolina, the natives burned the weed in stone pipes beginning probably as early as 5,000 BC but the practice of smoking really began to become commonplace during the Woodland Period beginning around 1,000 BC. At a later point after that ancient time a native pipe maker in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains made this small but unique obtuse angle pipe.
There are now well known archaeological and botanical facts that the prehistoric natives in this country grew a variety of tobacco, Nicotiana rustica, and used the plant leaves in their various ceremonies. There are many accounts by early European explorers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries AD of the natives smoking tobacco to summon assistance from their gods so as to invoke war victories over their enemies, for favorable and long lasting peace agreements and to insure bountiful harvests. And there is no reason not to believe that the same practices were carried out prehistorically.
Some of the most beautiful and esthetically pleasing pipes ever made in the Southeast were made in the Appalachian Mountains. With abundant rainfall and fertile valleys, the natives could easily grow their crops and have time for relaxation and also time to make ceremonial objects such as smoking pipes. Many of these were of the simple elbow style but with perfect artistic balance overall. There was usually no effigy carving or stylistic engraving on most of these pipes – just uncomplicated and streamlined beauty.
The pipe about which this article is written certainly fits the above category. It is a very simple obtuse angle elbow pipe which means that the bowl sits at an angle from the stem of greater than 90 degrees but less than 180 degrees. The bowl of this pipe sits at an angle of around 130 degrees from the stem. The stem itself is two inches long and slightly diamond shaped in cross section with a deeply indented mouthpiece. There appears to be considerable wear on the mouthpiece where the pipe was grasped in the smoker’s mouth and teeth many times. The overall length of this somewhat small pipe is 3 inches with the bowl being in the form that is normally called spool or vase shape, or as some collectors call it, a knuckle bowl. The rim of the bowl has a carved raised ring with some fine tally marks encircling the orifice, the most of which have been partially obliterated from too much handling by too many human hands. The pipe is made of high quality steatite and still retains much of the original polish from its manufacture time of about AD 1000 to 1500. It was found in Watauga County, North Carolina and obtained in the 1930’s by a father and son and stayed in that family collection for almost eighty years before being acquired by the writer.
This is not a huge or highly polished or elaborately carved pipe that immediately stops the viewer in his tracks. It is instead a subtly and beautifully made smoking instrument that a person must look at for a time to understand its understated elegance. And elegant it certainly is which the original owner must have understood and appreciated. So many of these beautiful pipes were smashed and destroyed either when the original owner died or by modern agricultural equipment. But luckily for us today, neither the ancient natives nor modern plows have desecrated this beautiful pipe – this extraordinary pipe– this simple elegant pipe - this unique obtuse angle pipe.
REFERENCES:
Dickens, Roy S.
CHEROKEE PREHISTORY
1976
Hart, Gordon
HART’S PREHISTORIC PIPE RACK
1976
Hothem, Lar
COLLECTOR’S GUIDE TO INDIAN PIPES
1999
Litton, Ralph 1924
USE OF TOBACCO AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Maus, James E.
“An Engraved Obtuse Angle Alate Pipe”,
CENTRAL STATES ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, Vol. 38, No. 1
1991
West, George
TOBACCO PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS
1934