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206 GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES IN THE
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stick
two feet long, as thick as a common cane and pierced in the middle. It
is ornamented with the head and neck of different birds of beautiful
plumage; they also add large feathers of red, green, and other colors,
with which it is all covered."1 Carver tells us that near
the Marble River " is a mountain from whence the Indians get a sort of
red stone, out of which they hew the bowls of their pipes," * and
adds that individuals belonging even to hostile tribes met in peace at
the " Red Mountain," where they obtained the stone for their pipes.'
Loskiel* and Dupraty " both refer to it in their works. George Catlin
was the first white man that the Indians permitted to visit the
locality. He not only described the spot very fully, but also painted
a picture of it in 1836.' He says: "The place where the Indians get
the stone for their red pipes, the mineral, red steatite, a variety
differing from any other known locality, is a wall of solid, compact
quartz, gray and rose color, highly polished as if vitrified. The wall
is two miles in length and thirty feet high, with a beautiful cascade
leaping from its top into a basin. On the prairie, at the base of the
wall, the pipeclay (steatite) is dug up at two and three feet depth.
There are seen five immense granite boulders, under which there are two
squaws, according to their tradition, who eternally dwell there—the
guardian spirits of the place—and must be consulted before the
pipe-stone can be dug up. The position of the pipestone quarry is in a
direction nearly west from the Falls of St. Anthony, at a distance of
300 miles, on the summit of the dividing ridge between the Saint
Peter's and the Missouri Rivers, being about equidistant from either.
This dividing ridge is denominated by the French the ' Coteau des
Prairies,' andvthe pipestone quarry is situated near its southern
extremity and consequently not
1 Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, by J. G. Shea (New York, 1852),
P-35-
8 Travels through North America (Dublin, 1779), p. 95.
3
Cf. Ancient Aboriginal Trade in North America, by Charles Rau. Report
of the Smithsonian Institution for 1872, p. 23 of reprint.
* Missouri der Evangelischen Bruder unter den Indianem in Nordamerika (Barly, 1789), p. 106.
5 Histoire de la Louisiane (Paris, 1758), Vol. 1, p. 326.
6 Eight
Years Amongst the North American Indians (New York, 1841), plate No.
270, Vol. 2, p. 164. See also Report of the Smithsonian Institution for
1885, part 2, p. 240.
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