Smoking Customs and Plains-Pueblo Interaction in the Southwest Border Pueblos. Conference Presentation at the 2018 Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. (original) (raw)
Related papers
This study examines use of pipes and smoking materials at trade centers in the Northern Rio Grande region of New Mexico. It explores whether these objects were part of ritually mediated interactions between these two regional groups, asking: were smoking pipes an element in negotiations between Pueblo people and their Plains neighbors? Ethnographic and ethnohistoric literature indicates that pipe-smoking was part of rituals that cemented inter-tribal trade relationships. Therefore, I propose that pipes, which were used in trade negotiations and ceremonial interactions, can be useful for examining social interaction and regional mediation aspects of trade and decision making. Three categories of data totaling 1,306 pipes were collected. The first was a comprehensive analysis of pipes from Pecos Pueblo, a large Protohistoric trade center located at the boundary of Pueblo and Plains territory. The second was an analysis of pipes from a selection of Southwest and Plains sites held in several museums. The third involved data collected from site reports for Eastern Pueblo sites. The methods used in this study included analyses and tabulations of particular physical attributes of pipes that provide information on pipe use and regional style, as well as spatial and temporal analyses of pipe concentrations and concentrations of particular pipe attributes. The overall abundance of pipes, particularly at sites in the Northern Rio Grande, as well as the large number of pipes with use-wear, suggests that pipe smoking was a frequent activity in the Protohistoric period. Finding pipes of ceremonial forms and materials, as well as concentrations of pipes in areas where ceremonial structures were located and at locations within sites where interaction between Plains and Pueblo people was reported to have taken place, provides evidence that at least some pipes were used in ceremonial interactions between different groups. The presence of non-local pipe forms and materials at Pueblo sites and Plains sites supports the idea that Plains and Pueblo people were interacting, and that pipes were part of this interaction. The blending of Plains and Pueblo form and materials suggests that there may have been a certain level of integration, alliance, or partnership in these interactions.
This project centers on Plains-Pueblo interaction in the protohistoric period in the U.S. Southwest and analyzes how trade and inter-regional interactions were ritually mediated between Great Plains and Pueblo groups, in part through the examination of pipes and smoking materials used in these interactions at pueblos in the Northern Rio Grande area of New Mexico. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric literature indicate that pipe smoking was part of rituals that cemented inter-tribal trade relationships. Therefore, I propose that pipes, which were used in trade negotiations and ceremonial interactions, can be proxies for examining social interaction and regional mediation aspects of trade and decision making. This paper assesses this hypothesis that intensity of pipe smoking correlates with intensity of trade. It also uses pipe designs, forms, and compositional materials to trace trade networks and locations of origin of visitors to the sites I am examining. Pipe types and density at pueblos reported to be Plains-Pueblo trade centers, such as Pecos Pueblo, will be compared with sites on the Plains and sites further interior in the Pueblo region.
2018
Trade between Pueblo and Plains groups is fairly well understood in terms of which products were traded and when and where the trade interactions took place, but how these trade alliances were formed and how these economic interactions were socially and ritually mediated has received less attention. This paper argues that pipe smoking played a role in this process, and that pipes are a useful artifact class to trace and study Plains-Pueblo interaction networks. To illustrate this, the paper focuses on the results of analyses of smoking pipes from Pecos Pueblo, a prominent Plains-Pueblo trade center. Spatial analyses of the distribution of pipes at the site, as well as analyses of changes in pipe forms, materials, surface designs, and use, suggest that Plains and Pueblo people at Pecos exchanged smoking customs and that pipes took on a role of helping to facilitate inter-group interactions in the Protohistoric Southwest.
We use pipe forms at Scott County Pueblo (14SC1), a seventeenth-century multiethnic community in western Kansas with Ndee (Dismal River) and Puebloan residents, to consider the community's position within multiple regional interaction spheres. We first present a broad regional overview of Central/Northern Great Plains and Midwest, Northern Rio Grande, and Ndee pipe forms in the AD 1500-1700 period, tabulating the presence and absence of specific forms at 14 archaeological sites, before classifying two complete pipes and 49 identifiable pipe fragments recovered from 14SC1. Our pipe form comparisons better distinguish Ndee pipes from other forms than previous literature and confirm that 14SC1 pipes are fully consistent with the documented Ndee and Puebloan occupations at the site. Ceremonial beliefs and practices around smoking at 14SC1 were shared with other Ndee communities and the Northern Rio Grande region, presumably cementing regional relationships that facilitated the movement of other material culture and people. Although Dismal River territory extended into the Central Plains, we find almost no material evidence of diplomatic, social, or ceremonial engagement with Caddoan-speaking groups such as the Sahnish (Arikara), Cǎriks i Cǎriks (Pawnee), and kirikir?i:s (Wichita)
The role of religious ritual and circumstances of its change are explored through the case of late prehistoric Native American Indian smoking pipes in the South Appalachian Mississippian region of the United States. Attributes of specific pipe categories in use from AD 1000-1600 are formally defined and their temporal and spatial parameters are determined from archaeological contexts. Symbolic features applied to pipes are evaluated with reference to Southeastern Indian mythology and current understanding of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC). Observed patterns are ultimately assessed and interpreted with respect to costly signaling theory. The research addresses a neglected dimension of Mississippian material culture studies by thoroughly documenting a representative sample of smoking pipes. Results establish that the South Appalachian Mississippian region experienced unique elaboration of smoking ritual during the period following about AD 1000. Furthermore the rites underwent a process of change that corresponded closely with reorientations to other aspects of the regional Mississippian cultural pattern. The historical progression of the ritual was generally from low-profile practice, to abrupt elaboration, and then to more modest but still prominent expression. That trend, in the context of broader Mississippian developments, is consistent with expectations of costly signaling theory as well as other models addressing the role of religious ritual and the nature of its change.
Pipe Manufacture on the Plains and Experimental Archaeology: Not Just Blowing Smoke
Pipe Manufacture on the Plains and Experimental Archaeology: Not Just Blowing Smoke, 2014
Several types of smoking pipes have been manufactured and used by native North American peoples throughout later prehistoric and historic times. Although substantial information exists on the styles of these pipes, very little is known about their methods of manufacture. This paper examines one particular style of pipe, the Florence Pipe, associated with the proto-Wichita Great Bend peoples. A block of Minnesota pipestone was manufactured into a pipe using stone tools replicated after those found in the Robb Collection from central Kansas. This archaeological assemblage was proposed to have been used in the manufacture of Florence pipes, which was confirmed through use-wear analysis of the collection. The steps and labor requirements for the creation of Florence pipes are illuminated in this paper in a way that cannot be accomplished through archaeological analysis and use-wear analysis alone.
Spokane House was founded by the North West Company in 1810. The nearby Pacific Fur Company post was purchased by the North West Company in 1813 and their goods were assimilated into Spokane House. The Hudson's Bay Company abandoned Spokane House and moved to the newly constructed Fort Colvile. The clay tobacco pipes from Spokane House' and Fort Colvile provide a continuum in a single artifact category which spans the Pacific Northwest Fur Trade from 1810 to 1871. Although sample sizes are smaller than some fur trade posts, a clear difference is demonstrable between the pipes of the North West Company era and those of the Hudson's Bay Company.