smoking-pipe

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Object Type
Museum number: Am.5200.a
Description: Pipe-bowl made of red stone, stone (catlinite).
Production ethnic group
Production date: 1825 (circa)
Findspot: Found/Acquired: Missouri River (upper)
Materials: stone; catlinite
Technique
Dimensions: Height: 6.75 centimetres; Width: 3.50 centimetres; Depth: 13 centimetres
Curator's comments: The acquisition slip that relates to this object records a description and provence in English and a note in German from an earlier owner: "Pres'd by A. W. Franks Esq. Jan. 1. 1869" "Purchased from Umlauf, Hamburg. Dec. 11 1868" "Calumet with red stone bowl 5 in long. (broken across). Cylindrical wood tube banded with porcupine quills in red, & black, & white striped bars alternately, & having six long tufts of whitish horse hair dyed red at the ends attached to it at intervals. A plume of 7 large feathers with tufts of horse hair at the ends & connected by a string of blue beads descends from the bowl end L. 3.4, D. 1/2 ins" "27. Friedenspfeife mit den Federn des amerik Seeadlers, von den Indianern des nordvestlichen Küste; von Kapitän Clarke zum Geschenk eshalten. Diese Calumet gehört unter die schonsten, die mir zu Gesicht gekommen *if from N. W. Coast"; Württemberg makes no mention of this pipe in the journal of his travels in 1823, but he does discuss Clark's collection in general and gives a detailed description of a meeting between Clark and a Potowatomi chief named Junaw-sche Wome and five of his best warriors. Württemberg noted that "During the entire transaction the peace-pipe went from mouth to mouth, and after each one with face upturned had sent three puffs of smoke into the air, he gave the pipe to the one seated next to him." (Travels in North America 1822-1824, Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg, translation by W. Robert Nitske (University of Oklahoma,1973), p. 193)
Bibliographic references: King 1999 / First Peoples, First Contacts: Native Peoples of North America (p. 263); Gibbs 1982 / Duke Paul Wilhelm Collection in the British Museum (no. 1, pp. 52-54); King 1977 / Smoking pipes of the North American Indian (p.51); Klann 1999 / Die Sammlung indianischer Ethnographica aus Nordamerika des Herzog Friedrich Paul Wilhelm von Württemberg (No. 27, pp. 50-51, fig. p. 54); Carocci 2012 / Warriors of the Plains: The Arts of Plains Indian Warfare (p.103)
Location: Not on display
Exhibition history: Exhibited: 1977 15 Dec-1978 30 Oct, Museum of Mankind, Room 9; Smoking Pipes of the North American Indian 1999 25 Jun-2004 7 Jun, BM Room 26; Gallery of North America, Case: "The American West" 2010 6 Jan-5 Apr, British Museum, Room 91, Warriors of the Plains: 200 years of Native North American honour and ritual 2012-2013 30 Nov-7 Apr, Bonn, Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Treasures of the World's Cultures
Acquisition name
Previous owner: Previous owner/ex-collection: J F G Umlauff; Previous owner/ex-collection: William Clark; Previous owner/ex-collection: Duke Friedrich Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg
Acquisition date: 1869
Acquisition notes: This pipe was once held in the collection of General William Clark, Governor of the Missouri Territory at St Louis. In c.1823 he gave it to Duke Friedrich Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg, a German artistocrat and explorer, who brought it back to Europe for his private collection. After Württemberg's death in 1860, the collection passed to the German Royal Collection for safekeeping and then to Hamburg antiquities dealer J. F. G. Umlauff, from whom Franks purchased it in 1868 (for more details, see Gibbs 1982).
Department: Africa, Oceania and the Americas
Registration number: Am.5200.a
Additional IDs: CDMS number: Am1869C1.5200a (old CDMS no.)
Conservation

Free entry

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