SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S PIPE.

Dominion, Issue 1337, 15 January 1912, Page 9

SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S PIPE.

Sir Walter Raleigh's pipe, sold in London tho other day, is not.the ordinary tvpe of Indian tobacco pipe known to antiquaries, though it is doubtless quite genuine. America, of course, smoked before Europe, and tobacco pipes arc found amongst the very early prehistoric, remains of the native races, notably in the grave mounds in the valley of the Mississippi River. Th-se early pipes are all made" of stone. Woode.u ones, if these makers of tho mounds had auy, as they very likely had, would have mouldered awav long ago. The stone pipes are nearly all of one pattern. Tho stone is cut in the form of an oblong and slightly bent platform or base three- or four inches long bv one inch'broad. On the middlo or this, and rising about an inch above it, is carved tho bowl. One end of the base is pierced as far as the hollow of the bowl. The other, end was, no ciounr, used for holding the pipo. A bowl without any ornament is common enough, but on' others tho 'artist has bestowed great pains. In these the bowl is in the form of a bird, quadruped, or reptile, and occasionally tho head of a man is found. . Pipe sculpture, it has been said, is the only native Indian art which withstood for any length of timo tho coming of European civilisation. There were several quarries of stone excellent for tho purpose, easily worked by tho craftsman. The quarry at Coteau des Prairies, in South Dakota, was the most famous. Pipes made from its red compact stone are found from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and some of tho earliest specimens in the burial mounds are made of it. Smoking under certain circumstances was a religious rite with the Indians, So sacred was the calumet, the "peace pipe," that in time of war pipestono /marries were neutral ground.