laborious process of rubbing it down with
other stones. The choice of the material for fashioning the favorite
pipe is by no means invariably guided by the facilities which the
location of the tribe affords. A suitable stone for such a purpose
will be picked up and carried hundreds of miles. Mr. Kane informs me
that, in coming down the Athabaska River, when drawing near its source
in the Rocky Mountains, he observed his Assinaboin guides select the
favorite bluish jasper from among the water-worn stones in the bed of
the river, to carry home for the purpose of pipe manufacture, although
they were then fully five hundred miles from their lodges. Such a
traditional adherence to a choice of material peculiar to a remote
source, may frequently prove of considerable value as a clue to former
migrations of the tribes. Both the Cree and the Winnebago Indians
carve pipes in stone of a form now more frequently met with in the
Indian curiosity stores of Canada and the States than any other
specimens of native carving. The tube, cut at a sharp right angle with
the cylindrical bowl of the pipe, is ornamented with a thin vandyked
ridge, generally perforated with a row of holes, and standing up
somewhat like the dorsal fin of a fish. The Winnebagos also
manufacture pipes of the same form, but of a smaller size, in lead,
with considerable skill.

Among the Cree Indians a double pipe is occasionally in use,
consisting of a bowl carved out of stone without much attempt at
ornament, but with perforations on two sides, so that two smokers can
insert their pipe-stems at once, and enjoy the same supply of tobacco.
It does not appear, however, that any special significance is attached
to this singular fancy. The Saultaux Indians, a branch of the great
Algonquin nation, also carve their pipes out of a black stone found in
their country, and evince considerable skill in the execution of their
elaborate details. But the most remarkable of all the specimens of
pipe sculpture executed by the Indians of the north-west are those
carved by the Bobeen, or Big-lip Indians,--so called from the singular
deformity they produce by inserting a piece of wood into a slit made
in the lower lip.

The Bobeen Indians are found along the Pacific coast, about latitude
54 deg., 40', and extend from the borders of the Russian dominions
eastward nearly to Frazer River. The pipes of the Bobeen, and also of
the Clalam Indians, occupying the neighboring Vancouver's I