The area between the Cascade Mountains and the Rocky Mountains in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and Western Montana is known as the Plateau Culture area. The Cashmere Museum in Cashmere, Washington has several exhibits of American Indian artifacts collected in the Columbia River area of central Washington. Included in these exhibits are some pipes.
Smoking—more specifically, the use of the pipe—is a cultural pattern that goes back for more than 2,000 years according to the archaeological data. Along the Columbia River, there were two types of stone pipes: an elbow pipe which was associated with the Upper Chinookans and a tubular pipe used by the Columbia Sahaptins. Tobacco (Nicotania attenuata) was cultivated by broadcasting the seeds in a plot which had been burned. When tobacco was not available, the people used kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) and when tobacco was available it was often mixed with kinnikinnick.
Tubular Pipes
Shown above are two tubular pipes. The larger pipe is made from steatite (a dense form of soapstone) while the small pipe appears to have been made from pipestone and may have originated from a quarry in Minnesota.
Elbow Pipes
More Ancient America
Ancient America: A collection of Columbia River stone artifacts (museum exhibit 205)
Ancient America: The East Wenatchee Clovis Site (museum tour)
Ancient America: Paleoindian stone tools in Washington's Plateau area
Ancient America: Avonlea, the early bow hunters
Ancient America: The Old Copper People
Ancient America: Hohokam Platform Mounds
Ancient America: A very brief overview of the Hopewell moundbuilders
Ancient America: Linking people to the cosmos in ancient Ohio
