Effigy Pipe

An effigy pipe is a stone smoking pipe carved in the shape of an animal, bird or human, with the bowl and stem hole built into the figure. Three main traditions are recognized: Adena pipes such as the Adena Pipe, a standing human figure with the bowl between its feet; Hopewell platform pipes with an animal or bird carved on the platform; and large Mississippian figure pipes of crouching or kneeling humans, frogs, felines and other subjects (Bergh 2016; Pickard 2008; Steponaitis et al. 2019).

Pipes were pecked, carved, ground and polished from soft, fine-grained stone. The Adena Pipe is Ohio pipestone (Bergh 2016); Hopewell effigies use Ohio and Illinois pipestones and catlinite (Emerson et al. 2013). Red Mississippian figure pipes are flint clay from near St. Louis, made at Cahokia, while Lower Mississippi Valley pipes of the Bellaire style are mostly Glendon limestone or sandstone, with a flared hole for a wooden stem (Emerson et al. 2003; Steponaitis et al. 2019).

They were smoked through a perishable stem and are found mostly in mounds and ceremonial deposits. Many Cahokia-made figure pipes ended up in Caddoan mortuary contexts such as Spiro (Emerson et al. 2003). The key trait is a pipe whose bowl and stem hole are worked into a carved animal or human figure.

Adena Pipe 203 mm tall, 66 × 51 mm (Bergh 2016); Spiro "Big Boy" pipe 225 mm tall (University of Arkansas 2013). Hopewell effigy platform pipes are much smaller, mostly under 100 mm long (Pickard 2008).

Ohio Valley (Adena and Ohio Hopewell), Illinois, and the Mississippian world from the American Bottom to Spiro, Oklahoma, and the Lower Mississippi Valley (Steponaitis et al. 2019; Emerson et al. 2003).

Any pipe form can carry an effigy, so also note the base: the Adena Pipe is a tubular pipe in human form, Hopewell effigies sit on platform pipes, and Mississippian figures are large self-standing pipes or pot-shaped elbow pipes (Steponaitis et al. 2019). Red Mississippian figures were long called bauxite, but mineral sourcing showed Missouri flint clay (Emerson and Hughes 2000). Bellaire-style themes include an underwater panther and a crouching human (Steponaitis et al. 2019). A stone carving with no bowl and stem hole is an effigy, not a pipe. The Adena Pipe was found in 1901 in a tomb at the base of the Adena Mound, Ohio (Bergh 2016).