The Native-American Peace Pipe (or Pipe of Peace). Two Terms Often Used as Symbol, Idiom, and Metaphor: Difference between revisions

The Native-American Peace Pipe (or Pipe of Peace). Two Terms Often Used as Symbol, Idiom, and Metaphor (view source)

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 Now to the substance of this essay. I hope that what follows is enlightening, entertaining, and educational. You might even be surprised. Its scope is a salmagundi of odds and ends, but what is common throughout are the many references to peace pipe/pipe of peace that have been used to identify different things, places, and activities. Some have taken liberties with these words for brand imagery. Both terms have become figures of speech and used in surprising ways; I include lots of assorted and unexpected things named peace pipe and pipe of peace.
-The columnist Chris Holguin posted “Americans need to stop abusing the peace pipe” (The Bowdoin Orient, September 23, 2016). His dispute was with the U.S. Government. My dispute is with these two words. This October 2013 quotation is attributed to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. When he was asked: “Had you already arrived at originalism as a philosophy?” Part of his answer was: “Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change.” Many words have changed as have meanings through time … and many words have more than one meaning, interpretation or connotation. The pipe of peace and the peace pipe are polysemous expressions, i.e., both have several meanings, both are culturally-sensitive words. The pipe, as a symbol, has been manipulated and used in different ways for different purposes in different contexts. I want to chronicle all the ways that these two terms, once attributed to a sacred object, have been appropriated and colloquialized—occasionally trivialized—and have become secular, materialistic, or mundane in the non-religious sense of the sacred and the profane. Wherever found and however applied, some of what follows befits Ripley’s column, Believe It or Not. Shakespeare’s Juliet asked: “What’s in a name?” You’re about to find out.
+The columnist Chris Holguin posted “Americans need to stop abusing the peace pipe” (''The Bowdoin Orient'', September 23, 2016). His dispute was with the U.S. Government. My dispute is with these two words. This October 2013 quotation is attributed to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. When he was asked: “Had you already arrived at originalism as a philosophy?” Part of his answer was: “Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change.” Many words have changed as have meanings through time … and many words have more than one meaning, interpretation or connotation. The pipe of peace and the peace pipe are polysemous expressions, i.e., both have several meanings, both are culturally-sensitive words. The pipe, as a symbol, has been manipulated and used in different ways for different purposes in different contexts. I want to chronicle all the ways that these two terms, once attributed to a sacred object, have been appropriated and colloquialized—occasionally trivialized—and have become secular, materialistic, or mundane in the non-religious sense of the sacred and the profane. Wherever found and however applied, some of what follows befits Ripley’s column, Believe It or Not. Shakespeare’s Juliet asked: “What’s in a name?” You’re about to find out.
 === Music ===