Catlinite, Argillite, and Terracotta Pipes
Exclusive to pipedia.org
Introcudtion
Tobacco-pipe history spans most of recorded human history. And no pipe history is complete without acknowledging every material that was used to make a tobacco pipe anywhere smoking was customary, whether that pipe was used for ritual or for recreation. I have borrowed and altered a phrase attributed to President Harry S. Truman to make a point: “The only thing new in this world [of tobacco pipes] is the [pipe] history that you don’t may not know.” So here are three different pipes you may not be familiar with.
Two years ago, I had written about “Hydrostone and Resin Pipes” (pipedia.org). In 2024, I crafted another article for pipedia on gutta percha and Redmanol pipes. What these three pipe materials have in common is that they were all engaged here in the Americas, but not concurrently, not even in the same millennium. It’s time for a brief introduction to them, just enough, perhaps, to whet your appetite. This article is an overview, so I include books and periodical articles about each medium for those interested in learning and seeing more.
Catlinite
Catlinite, or Pipestone, is a natural stone located in mines in the central part of the United States. It attains a deep reddish color after you polish it. A widespread legend among American Indians is that the red stone is made from the flesh and blood of their ancestors. The principal quarries are in Minnesota. From about 1200 C.E. (the Common Era, or A.D.), several Plains tribes, particularly the Sioux, quarried this stone starting sometime in the 1700s. Pipestone has been described as argillite (see next section), a clay that metamorphosed into stone.
The term Catlinite (an honorific) came into use after the American lawyer and self-taught painter George Catlin visited the quarries in 1835, lived among the natives and painted their portraits in costumes of peace and war, in their ordinary vocations and in their war costumes. “It was Catlin who first described in detail the pipe-stone quarry from which all the Plains Indians got the material for their pipe bowls. Consequently, this material, which is a deep, rich red, and takes on a beautiful polish, is usually termed catlinite” (Alfred Dunhill, The Pipe Book, 1924, 60).
“By at least the Middle Woodland period (circa 200 BC to AD 400 [Alex 2000:115]; aka Fox Lake Phase of the Middle Prehistoric Period in the Prairie Lake Region, 200 BC–AD 700 [Anfinson 1997:47-75]), the native inhabitants of the region were digging, using, and trading the red argillite that became known as pipestone or catlinite” (History of the Pipestone Indian Reservation,” An Archaeological Inventory and Overview of Pipestone National Monument, Minnesota, National Park Service, 2006, 9).
Courtesy, liveauctioneers.com
Courtesy, liveauctioneers.com
Courtesy, bonhams.com
Where to see them? The Pipestone National Monument and the Pipestone Indian Shrine Association, Pipestone, Minnesota. The National Museum of The American Indian, Washington, D. C., has several on display. Keeping the tradition alive, many Native Americans continue to make pipestone pipes that are, most often, purchased by tourists.
Argillite
Of the three mediums in this study, argillite has been and continues to be the most studied. It is the pipe medium that has been critically examined and documented for at least the last fifty years, more than white clay, meerschaum, porcelain, and wood. It is still a traditional carving material used by the Haida, native Americans who inhabit the Queen Charlotte Islands, an archipelago off the northern Pacific coast of Canada; the name changed to Haida Gwaii in 2010. Argillite, unique to the islands, is a fine-grained, black, sedimentary rock or shale that can easily be shaped and molded with ease. Argillite comes in assorted colors—deep red purple, yellow-green, maroon, and black—the predominant color used to craft art objects. Argillite is temperamental. It is dirty to work with, resistant to tools, and prone to flaws that can destroy hours of work with one misplaced stroke. Because of its water content, it can shatter in the cold.
James N. Gunderson et al., “Pipestone Argillite Artifacts From Old Mobile and Environs” (Historical Archaeology, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2002): “Argillite, called pipestone in the Midwest U.S., is a commonly occurring red silt- or mud-stone found throughout the Southwest U.S.” I’m not equipped to question, but I’ve never seen these two separate mediums conflated, and I found out why: Pipestone is red argillite! “There are several varieties of pipestone in different parts of the country. On the Colorado Plateau, it’s known as mudstone, siltstone, or argillite—a hardened mixture of quartz and clay in a gorgeous shade of red” (Gary Alpert, “Earth Notes: Pipestone—Red Argillite,” Arizona Public Radio, July 24, 2019). Then, I dug deeper to learn that the most common colors of argillite in the West Valley of Kalispell, Montana, are red and blue, and can also be green, yellow, purple, turquoise, white, and black. I had always believed that argillite was common only to the Queen Charlotte Islands. I learn something new every day.
Initially, the Haida adapted the traditional imagery and composition of their wood pipes to argillite. The earliest Haida argillite artworks date to about the late 1820s. The earliest pieces are relatively small ceremonial pipes, but very quickly Haida artists began making argillite objects primarily for trade with Euro-American visitors and for sale to fur traders. They experimented with a variety of objects: pipes, figures, tableware, model totems, recorders; imagery (Haida and foreign-inspired); and styles (traditional form, naturalistic, and hybrid) throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th century. Among the most fascinating works from the early-mid 1800s are intricate panel pipes, Haida-motif and ship-panel motif. By mid-century, the pipe became nonfunctional. According to Carol Sheehan (see Bibliography), “Carvers in argillite created sculptures in an indigenous visual idiom whose meanings made little or no sense in a Haida cultural context.”
“They [the Haida] fashion drinking-vessels, tobacco pipes, etc., from a soft, argillaceous stone, and these articles are remarkable for the symmetry of their form, and the exceedingly elaborate and intricate figures, which are cared [sic] upon them. With regard to carving and a faculty for imitation, the Queen Charlotte islanders are equal to the most ingenious of the Polynesian tribes” (Frances M. Slaney, Marius Barbeau’s Vitalist Ethnology, 2023, 190).
- Argillite examples
Courtesy, christies.com
Courtesy, dmns.org
Courtesy, maynardsfineart.com.
Courtesy, santafeartauction.com
Prices of new pipes are rather reasonable, in the hundreds, but the best of breed are those carved a century earlier, those identified as First Period (1800–1830), Second Period (1830–1865), and Third Period (1865–1910) that can command several thousand dollars at auction, particularly for the more complex panel pipes. Today, quality argillite pipes are still being made, but they are a niche market. Prices? In 2019, Rago Auctions, Lambertville, New Jersey, sold one for $18,750.
Terracotta (or Terra Cotta)
Michoacán, Purepecha, Tarascan—Pre-Columbian America—is dated from 14,000 B.C.E. to 476 C.E. The information about Mesoamerica tobacco use and pipes is rather scanty, but evidence exists on the terracotta tobacco pipes that have survived. They have been discovered in digs in several countries, but my focus is narrowed to the Americas and the Near East.
Terracotta is a clay-based, non-vitreous ceramic fired at relatively low temperatures. When fired, it assumes a color ranging from dull ochre to red and usually is left unglazed. Depending on what you read in the literature, it may be called red clay or, according to the Amsterdam Pipe Museum, its curator prefers the term earthenware pipes.
“The clay tobacco pipe, especially in its ‘terracotta’ versions, is arguably the most studied colonial artifact type in the New World” (Al Luckenbach and Taft Kiser, “Seventeenth-Century Tobacco Pipe Manufacturing in the Chesapeake Region: A Preliminary Delineation of Makers and Their Style,” chipstone.org). There is also evidence that such pipes were unearthed from archaeological sites along the Eastern seaboard. “Many of the ancient clay pipes found in Mexico, etc., are elaborately molded and ornamented, while others show considerable similarity to the early clay pipes of Europe” (“PIPE,” The World-Wide Encyclopedia and Gazetteer, Vol. VI—Magistrate—Plutus, 1899, 4814).
The pipes from Central America were in fact formed by hand and could have had any desired appearance with a funnel-shaped or rounded bowl, either in a smooth design or with decorations. “It is difficult to say what forms the tobacco pipes of the southern Indians had taken in pre-Columbian times, the early writers having said little with reference to them. Their great number, the high degree of elaboration, and the wide differentiation of form indicate, however, a long period of pipe making” (J. W. Powell, Twentieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1898–99, 1903, 140).
- Terracotta (or Terra Cotta) examples
Courtesy, liveauctioneers.com
Courtesy, collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
Courtesy, sothebys.com
Pipe, c. 1200–1500, courtesy, bowers.org.
There is an illustration of a pipe from Ghana, c. 1900 (Allen F. Roberts, “Smoking in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Smoke. A Global History of Smoking, 2004) that has a terracotta bowl, and one found in Burkina Faso, illustrated at pipesmuseum.nl, so there is slight evidence that this material was used for pipes produced in Africa. Clay chibouk bowls have also been found in Rua do Terreiro do Trigo, Lisbon (Miguel Martins de Sousa, “Two Types of Smoking Pipes and a Global Perspective in Rua do Terreiro do Trigo, Lisbon,” researchgate.net, March 2021).
The most well-documented terracotta bowl is the lüle (Turkish), associated with the çubuk (chibouk, chibouque) pipe of the Ottoman Empire. (Bowls were also made of stone, wood, and metal.) The pipe is the most frequently portrayed object in the tradition of harem pictures; it typically identifies the exotic harem locale. “In the ornamentation and elegance of its pipes, Turkey stands among the first. The exhibit [the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia] under this head is large, and presents many articles peculiar to this country. The chibouk is a bowl with a stem about five feet long, and having a large mouthpiece of amber” (Samuel J. Burr and S. De Vere Burr, Memorial of the International Exhibition, 1877, 471).
“John Hayes’s preliminary report on post-medieval clay pipes from the Saraçhane excavations, published in 1980, first established a chronology for pipe bowls of the chibouk style. Based on associated finds, he constructed a provisional typology and chronology that divided them into 27 types, which became vital for dating other materials from the Aegean” (Joanita Vroom, “Kütahya Between the Lines: Post-Medieval Ceramics as Historical Information,” in Siriol Davies and Jack L Davis (eds.), Between Venice and Istanbul. Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece (2007), 84.
- Additional Terracotta (or Terra Cotta) examples
Courtesy, weltmuseumwien.at
Courtesy, catawiki.com
Courtesy, lelandlittle.com
Reproductions have been made for many years to look antique. The terracotta tobacco pipes for sale at smokingpipes.com are in name only: they are briar pipes whose finish, or stain, is called terracotta, but not the color of terra cotta, i. e., the clay. Here’s just one from its website “…with this example dressed in the smooth Terracotta finish—a rich, ruby-tinged stain that evokes the look of vintage pipes from the early 1900s.”
Bibliography
The bibliography, consisting of books and periodical articles, is organized alphabetically by author, not by theme.
Tim Anderson, Indian Pipes & Smoking Practices (2021)
John Baldwin, Red Pipes. Indian Smoking Pipes of the American Frontier (2007)
Alfred F. Berlin, Early Smoking Pipes of The North American Aborigines (1904)
Elizabeth Anne Bollwerk and Shannon Tushingham (eds.), Perspectives on the Archaeology of Pipes, Tobacco and other Smoke Plants in the Ancient Americas (2016)
Edwin Atlee Barber, Catalogue of the Collection of Tobacco Pipes Deposited by Edwin A. Barber (1882)
______. Catlinite. Its Antiquity as a Material for Tobacco Pipes (1883)
Peter Davey (ed.), The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe. VIII. America (1983)
Arjan de Haan, “19th Century clay chibouks made in Tophane” (The Pipe Yearbook, 2005)
Anna de Vincenz, “Chibouk Smoking Pipes—Secrets and Riddles of the Ottoman Past” in Joseph Patrich, et al., Arise, Walk Through The Land (2016)
(*)Leslie Drew and Douglas Wilson, Art of the Haida (1979)
John C. Ewers, Indian Art in Pipestone (1979)
Marina N. Gavrilova, “Tradition and Beauty—Ottoman Smoking Pipes Based on Materials from the State Hermitage Collection” (Europa Postmediaevalis 2020. Post-Medieval Pottery in the Spare Time, 2021)
Henry W. Hamilton, Tobacco Pipes of the Missouri Indians (1967)
Gordon Hart, Hart’s Prehistoric Pipe Rack, Volume 1 (1978); Volume 2 (1998)
Susan L. Henry, “Terra-Cotta Tobacco Pipes in 17th Century Maryland and Virginia: A Preliminary Study” (Historical Archaeology, Vol. 13, 1979)
Lar Hothem, Collector’s Guide to Indian Pipes (1998)
______. Catlinite Pipes (1998)
Marcus M. Key, Jr., and Tara E. Jones, “Geoarcheology of Terra Cotta Tobacco Pipes from the Colonial Period Davis Site (44LA46), Lancaster County, Virginia” (Quarterly Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Virginia, 2000)
Jonathan C. H. King, Smoking Pipes of the North American Indian (1977)
Peter L. Macnair and Alan L Hoover, The Magic Leaves (2003)
J. Alden Mason, Use of Tobacco in Mexico and South America (1924)
Joseph D. McGuire, Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Aborigines (1899)
Jordan Paper, Offering Smoke. The Sacred Pipe and Native American Religion (1988)
Sean M. Rafferty, Smoking and Culture. The Archaeology of Tobacco Pipes in Eastern North Carolina (2016)
Alexandra Rusu, Pipes, chibouks, and tobacco (rev-antropologieurbana.ro)
Science Museum of Minnesota, Pipes and Pipestone (1955)
Louis Seig, Tobacco, Peace Pipes, and Indians (1971)
Carol Sheehan, Pipes That Won’t Smoke. Coal That Won’t Burn (1981)
Ronald R. Switzer, Tobacco, Pipes, and Cigarettes of the Prehistoric Southwest (1969)
Hasan Uçar, “Archaeological proof of enjoy at tire kutu han: clay pipes” (Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, Vol. 19, No, 2, 2019)
Muriel Porter Weaver, Pipas precortesianas (1948)
George A. West, Tobacco, Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Indians, 2 volumes (1934)
Robin K. Wright, Haida Argillite Pipes (1977)
______. Nineteenth Century Haida Argillite Pipe Carvers: Stylistic Attribution (1985)
______. Northern Haida Master Carvers (2001)
______. “Haida Argillite Ship Pipes” (American Indian Art magazine, Winter 1979)
______. “Haida Argillite Pipes” (American Indian Art magazine, Autumn 1980)
______. “Haida Argillite. Carved for Sale” (American Indian Art magazine, Winter 1982)
(*) “NWC Art reading list” is a substantial bibliography on argillite at sfu.ca.
There’s at least one DVD about Pipestone: First Nations Films, “The Pipemakers: The Making of the Sacred Pipe” (indigenouspeoplesresources.com).
Conclusion
A final word. The smokeability of any or all three mediums? It’s questionable. Their collectability? It’s unquestionable ... but they are not everyone’s cup of tea.