Tobacco Pipe, Stone Bowl
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1879
name: label: Collector
content: Edward W. Nelson
label: Donor Name
content: Edward W. Nelson
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "ILLUS. IN BAE 18TH AR, PT. 1; PL. 88-7; P. 280."
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact https://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=92 , retrieved 12-27-2021; see web page for additional information: Pipe, Inupiaq. Iñupiaq men and women both used snuff or chewing tobacco, while most smokers traditionally were men. A pipe was prepared by placing a little tuft of fur in the bottom of the bowl as a filter, then adding a small amount of finely cut tobacco and lighting it with a match or burning coal. This wooden pipe has a bowl of carved stone and a mouthpiece made from a brass rifle cartridge and a thimble. Both men and women used snuff or chewing tobacco, while most smokers were men. A pipe was prepared by placing a little tuft of fur in the bottom of the bowl. A small amount of finely cut tobacco was added and lit with a burning coal. The smoker inhaled deeply and exhaled after holding in the smoke as long as possible. Bering Strait tobacco pipes had flaring, circular bowls, a style that almost certainly originated in China or Japan. As with tobacco, the earliest pipes arrived through Siberian exchange networks, followed by direct contact with Russian traders. Pipe bowls-made of stone, ivory, copper, brass or lead-were small and held an amount of tobacco that could be smoked in just one or a few puffs. By the late 1870s and early 1880s, collector Edward Nelson found that most pipe bowls were being made from metal. The pipe pictured here may have been old at the time he purchased it at Port Clarence in 1879. It has a stone bowl lashed to a wooden stem with sinew, and a mouthpiece made from a rifle cartridge with a copper thimble fitted over the joint. Pipe stems were often made from two pieces of wood that were lashed together. This design allowed the pipe to be taken apart to remove the concentrated, nicotine-rich tar inside, which was mixed with chewing tobacco. Pipes carved from a solid piece of wood, like this one and others from Norton Sound and Bering Strait, have a removable piece at the lower end which allows the tar to be extracted. Pipes and tobacco-as well as the flint, steel and tinder used to light them-were carried in tobacco bags. These small, rounded-bottomed bags were made from various furs and skins, usually sewn into patterns of alternating colors or ornamented with beaded tassels. Nelson observed that at St. Michael that all of a deceased man's pipe, pouch, and other tobacco items were placed inside his coffin.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 30 Jan 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Unalakleet, Norton Sound, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Inupiaq
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 008133
label: USNM Number
content: E38788-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Pipe
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 30 cm