Duck Effigy Pipe
The Hopewell culture is from the east-central region of North America. Mostly in what is now southern Ohio, it existed from approximately 200 BCE to 500 CE. Related groups were also present in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and New York. The first site was investigated at the Hopewell property in Ross County, Ohio, and consisted of a collection of burial mounds surrounded by large banked earth fences. Subsequent studies showed that building dirt mounds was a common habit with various uses. Villages in the Hopewell community were located along rivers and streams. The people relied on hunting, fishing, and harvesting wild nuts, fruits, seeds, and roots. They also produced corn (maize), possibly beans, and squash. There may have been some division of labor based on the quantity of ornate metalwork, stonework, and pottery that have been discovered. Although the earthworks frequently acted as burial mounds or appeared to be the foundation of temples or other buildings, they occasionally alluded to defensive uses.
Their finest ceramics were expertly crafted, frequently with realistic contours decorated with stamped or engraved lines. More remarkable were polished stone effigy pipes depicting fish, birds, and other creatures, like this Duck Effigy Pipe. It has been said that their heating and beating metalwork is the best in pre-Columbian North America. Copper sheet was widely utilized; small amounts of meteoric iron, silver, and gold were occasionally incorporated into ornaments and functional objects.
Most of the Mound City Hopewell Culture National Historical Park pipes were constructed from Ohio pipestone, local limestone, and claylike sedimentary rock deposits. Southern Ohio has many of the locations for these sources. A range of "pipe stones" could be used to make pipes at other Hopewell sites in the Scioto River basin. These include Missouri flint clay, catlinite, a pipestone from the Pipestone National Monument in southwest Minnesota, and Sterling Pipestone, another clay-like deposit found in Illinois. Each stone is composed of extremely small silt particles that have been welded together by heat and pressure, even though they come from various sources. Because they are comparatively easier to carve than other kinds of stone, these rocks are referred to as "soft" rocks. The pipes discovered in the Scioto River Valley's earthworks were probably carved by prehistoric artisans using flint blades and knives, which they used to create images of various local creatures, including wolves, birds, beavers, otters, turtles, frogs, and raccoons. These various stones come in many hues, ranging from vivid pinks and reds to blacks and greys. They can also be heated to alter the stone's hue.
Tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) was smoked via these pipes as part of a religious ceremony. The Hopewell culture's adherents probably saw effigy pipes as living beings and utilized them for prayers during ceremonial rituals. The smoke from the pipe is believed to transmit prayers to the spirits beyond the realm of the living, according to modern American Indian custom. According to Mound City Group, many of these pipes were purposefully shattered, which may have symbolized the pipe's spirit being released 2,000 years ago.
If you want to see some of these pipes for yourself, come by our museum in Bentonville!
Works Cited
“Hopewell Culture | North American Mound Builders, Artifacts and Trade.” Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/topic/Hopewell-culture.
“Hopewell Culture Pipestone (U.S. National Park Service).” Hopewell Culture Pipestone (U.S. National Park Service), www.nps.gov/articles/000/hopewell-culture-pipestone.htm.
Credit to Olivia Lee