USA > Kentucky > The prehistoric men of Kentucky : a history of what is known of their lives and habits, together with a description of their implements and other relics and of the tumuli which have earned for them the designation of Mound builders > Part 15
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Very shortly after the discovery of the Western World tobacco was brought to the Old World, but the unexpected call on the supplies of the red men quickly exhausted their scanty store, and it was impossible to meet the pressing demands which came from across the water for the delights of this seductive plant, and at once the seed was sent over, and in many parts of Europe tobacco was cultivated. At first they adopted the methods of the red man, but the genius of the white man doubtless improved the cultivation, and brought with it better results. The
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Spaniards became the pioneers in the use of tobacco, and they were quickly followed by the French; but the English, while slow to take up the habit, soon outstripped their continental neighbors in its consumption. Sir Walter Raleigh was among the first Englishmen to lend his exam- ple. History says that " Queen Elizabeth was not averse to using the weed on certain occasions herself," thus being a forerunner of, if not a worthy example for, the modern cigarette girl.
It is admitted on all hands that smoking was an impor- tant factor in the religious ceremonies of the American aborigines, and that hundreds of years before the coming of the white man they used tobacco in many ways and in great quantities. The Jesuits, who were the first Western missionaries, tell us that it was a part of every ceremony, religious or otherwise, and that it was a necessary ad- junct to all of the red man's councils and deliberations and to the conduct of all business, and that pledges made under its influence were held inviolable. The red man be- lieved that the Great Spirit had revealed the use of this plant to his forefathers. Whether or not his remote ances- tors had heard of the incense offering to the gods, the man of the West, in smoking his tobacco, imagined himself thus brought closely in contact with his Supreme Being, and the first breath of his pipe was blown toward the sky and the sun, and was a part of his worship.
Strangers who visited the West, traveling under the mysterious protection of the calumet or pipe of peace, were not molested. Wherever the red man smoked this pipe of peace with the stranger, he was safe. When once the pipe was exchanged between men, peace was always the result of this mystic proceeding. Hospitality, friend-
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ship, and protection were represented in the sacred plant, and he who inhaled its mysterious smoke and together with his host sent the flames skyward, became bound by a compact as strong as that which united these people to their God, and he was deemed miscreant who for one moment forgot the tie and the obligations which this cere- mony entailed. In going upon a mission of importance to another tribe or nation they performed the incense ceremony four times each day, first blowing the smoke to the four cardinal points, then to the sky, and then down upon the ground, thus invoking aid from all parts of space, and surely in one of these directions reaching the Great Spirit and placing themselves under the pro- tection of the Being they worshiped.
The white man was not slow in imitating his red brethren in the use of tobacco, and soon became more exces- sive than his newly found friend in all the phases of tobacco consumption, and whether in smoking or snuff-taking, quickly outran the people who had first discovered and perfected the use of this remarkable weed. With the red man the pipe was the most important of all his possessions. Upon it he lavished his highest skill, and no weariness or labor caused him to hesitate in the necessary work of its preparation. The high esteem in which it was held is evinced by the great amount of labor and endless pa- tience he expended in carving its forms. Axes and arrow- heads were built along many lines, but these ordinarily required no very great development or outlay of genius. When beveling and serration came into fashion, the Indian had made great advances in the art of arrow-making, but it was when the red man realized the soothing comfort and the sedative delight of tobacco that his artistic genius
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SCULPTURED HUMAN HEAD Red Sandstone. From Henderson County, Kentucky Property of Miss Agatha Bullitt
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11
PIPES-TUBULAR FORM Length of largest, ten inches
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9
PIPES
About one half actual size. Miscellaneous Collection
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L
PIPES
About one third actual size. Materials, Sandstone and Steatite
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PIPES-STEATITE
Upper, Fulton County. W. P. Taylor Collection Lower (two views), Cumberland County
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PIPES-BIRD EFFIGIES About one third actual size
PIPES-BIRD EFFIGIES
Upper, Steatite. From Montgomery County. Holt Collection Lower, Crystalline Limestone. From Fulton County. Taylor Collection One half sizc
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PIPE-DUCK EFFIGY Length, five and one half inches. Material, Steatite From Bourbon County
The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky
was quickened and incited to the highest skill to produce that which would be beautiful as well as convenient for his use. Comforting and pleasing to him in so many ways, as a matter of pride and gratitude he evoked all that skill and labor could suggest to ornament the pipe, which became his constant companion day and night, his friend on long marches or dangerous expeditions, and the talisman with which he disarmed the hatred and ven- geance of his foes.
As soon as settlements were established in the New World and agriculture begun, tobacco became the chief product of the colonies. In 1616, at Jamestown, Virginia, laws were passed making tobacco currency. It was cured and sent across the ocean, and upon its arrival at its destination, used. It was deemed to be a panacea for a vast number of the ills of the body.
The red man used his smoke to allay storms on the water, the Italian to divert the evils and the asthma of the Tiber, and in England history tells us it was asserted that the devil was much afraid of tobacco and its smoke. The medical faculties of Europe prescribed its use in many ways, and its use quickly permeated every grade of soci- ety. When Columbus came, the tobacco leaf for smoking purposes was used in the shape of a rolled tube. Pipes were also common. The rolled tube was nothing more than the ancestor of the cigarette or cigar of to-day. In Mexico the people still largely use the cigarette in smoking. Besides this, the natives made mixtures or pills which they were accustomed to chew when crossing a desert where food and drink were scarce, thus at least imitating, if not antedating, the use of the leaves of the cocoa by the South American laborer.
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A French writer claims that the plant was named after an island by that name, but no such island was ever known. Doctor Joseph E. McGuire, in his interesting work, “ Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Aborigines," covers fully the details on this subject, and he concludes: "The name in all the modern cases appears to be derived from the American word tobacco." To this delightful work of Doctor McGuire's the author is indebted for much of the information contained in the previous parts of this chapter.
Whatever may have been the use of tobacco after its introduction in Europe, it was certainly used in Kentucky six hundred years ago. Pipes have been taken from mounds, the age of which is demonstrable to be of that period, and as early as that pipes of various forms were used, some large, some small. The larger ones were of such extreme size of bowl as to satisfy any observer that no man could stand the strain of smoking such a quantity of tobacco as would be required to fill these receptacles.
A recent find of two specimens of leaf tobacco, together with the seed pod of the plant in Salts Cave, conclusively shows that tobacco was used in Kentucky during the cloth slipper period. So far as the observation of the white man goes, this period of using cloth slippers either by men or women antedated the Columbian period, and Pro- fessor Putnam, whose opinion always carries weight on such subjects, is inclined to the belief that the objects in Salts Cave, with which this tobacco was associated, indicate a rather great antiquity. While there is nothing so far discovered in Salts Cave which indicates that the tobacco was smoked, its presence at this early period is an assurance that it was used either for smoking or snuff,
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and that certainly it was cultivated and cured in Kentucky five hundred years ago. It is rather a remarkable fact that among all the finds in Salts Cave no stone or pot- tery pipe has been found, nor are there any evidences that wooden pipes were used. It is not improbable, in view of these facts, that these cave-dwellers may have used their tobacco as snuff, or may have utilized the gourds for pipes, as is done with the calabash in the present period. Some of these gourds are not much larger than the bowls of some of the pipes used by the Mound Builders.
With the data now at hand it is not possible to deter- mine the development of the pipe-indeed, many of the best specimens appear to be the most ancient. The splen- did pipe shown at top of page 288 has a certain age of at least six hundred years. It was found in the roots of a beech tree which had grown on the top of a mound near Green River, in Hart County. The tap root had closed around the pipe when the tree was very small and just after the seed had burst the shell and sent its tiny stem heavenward. Here this splendid pipe remained for hun- dreds of years, until the mighty tree had reached gigantic proportions; then through a long series of years the tree remained stationary, and then began to decrease in power and vigor until at last, by a storm, it was laid low and the pipe again exposed to the light of day, which hundreds of years before had been the pride of its maker and which, to him who fashioned it, had brought solace in sorrow, courage in war, and contentment in peace, and which had doubtless played a conspicuous part in the lives of those who had lived in its day and near the home of its owner. The pressure of the root and the concussion in the fall of the
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tree broke the pipe into nine separate pieces. Colonel Robert Munford, of Munfordville, Kentucky, from whom it was obtained, and who was a most enthusiastic and zealous antiquarian, discovered the pipe in the root after the tree had been blown down, cut away the pieces that were holding it, and searched with intense diligence for the remaining parts of this splendid piece of workmanship that were lost. He moved the dirt carefully with his hands and with a sifter, and in the course of two or three months found every piece but one. With glue, which he had learned from the Indians to manufacture out of buck's horn, he welded the separate pieces into a beauti- ful whole again, but still one piece was lacking. For eight months he searched for this last piece until, like the woman in the Scriptures hunting for the lost coin, he found it, and his patience and courage were rewarded with the de- light which can come only to an antiquarian when, after long months of toil and watchfulness, he finds that which he sought. The pipe was now restored to its beauty and its original attractiveness. The mound showed that other timber, certainly of an age antedating the beech tree, had sprung out of the earth which had been used to fashion it into form. Through these centuries the trees had grown, while beneath the surface, in the grip of the beech, the beautiful pipe, hidden from all that was bright and attractive, lay in the dark, damp earth. At last the storm had liberated it and brought it back into the sunlight again. In its mute and silent way it tells of the achieve- ment as well as the genius of him who, hundreds of years before, had fashioned it with artistic skill into its present form. This unusual piece of Mound Builder's work is made of oölitic limestone. By its contact with the wood
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PIPE-BIRD EFFIGY Length, six inches. Material, dark reddish brown and very hard From Trigg County
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From Hart County. Seventeen inches long
From Montgomery County
From Franklin County
PIPES
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O
PIPE Representing grief or despair. From Livingston County
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PIPE-EFFIGY BEAR HUGGING MAN
PIPE Steatite. Fourteen stem holes [ 290 ]
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it has the appearance of petrifaction, but a scratch shows this not to be so. It measures sixteen and three fourths inches in length; just back of the bowl it is seven and one half inches in circumference; the bowl itself is eight inches in circumference; the cavity for the tobacco is four and one half inches in circumference, and the pipe weighs seven and one half pounds.
On the page with this large pipe is found another very unusual form. Its details almost make one think it is of Mexican origin. It is made of Kentucky sandstone, and has a square hole at the base and round hole in the bowl, and has been fashioned so as to secure what would be called relief work. It was plowed up about ten years since in a cornfield, by a lad in Montgomery County. The point of the plow struck it and made a slight abrasion. Proud of his find, the boy brought it to Mt. Sterling, where fortunately it came under the eye of the editor of one of the papers, Mr. Joseph W. Hedden, who knew the writer's weakness for such specimens. He offered the boy a dollar for it, but the young merchant felt he had a more valuable possession than a dollar's worth, and insisted on eight dollars. The gentleman replied that he knew of but one man in Kentucky who was foolish enough to pay eight dollars for a piece of stone like the pipe in ques- tion, but would communicate with him. Upon writing the author a description of the pipe he immediately tele- graphed that there was a man in Kentucky foolish enough to pay eight dollars for a pipe, and so it came along and took its place in his collection. The relief work, the arrangement of its lines, the square hole, the space cut between the bowl and the place for the stem, all mark this as a very unusual piece of prehistoric art.
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On the same page will be found another unusual and interesting specimen of pipe. It is made of a black slate, much heavier than the banded variety. This pipe was plowed up in a field in Franklin County, Kentucky. It passed into the possession of a gentleman who, being inter- ested in antiquarian work, turned it over to the author. Unfortunately the former owner marred it by carving his initials on it, and either the man who made it or some subsequent owner carved a face on the square beside the bowl. The diameter of the bowl is three inches, the diameter of the place in which the tobacco was inserted is three fourths of an inch, and the hole at which the stem was inserted is practically the same size as the opening for the tobacco. The design, while quite simple, is worked out in very graceful lines, and its proportions are in every particular quite æsthetic.
The representation of another remarkable pipe will be found on page 289. This has been thought by many observ- ers to be the most artistic pipe ever found in Kentucky. It is made of an apparently bluish limestone, and repre- sents a man with his elbows on his knees, his hands about his face, while every line indicates one in deep dis- tress or despair. The general effect is striking, and it certainly was a stroke of genius to work into a pipe created out of stone the idea of a human being in grief or sorrow. A companion piece to this pipe of despair is a man and bear struggling in conflict. (See page 290.) The legs of the bear envelope the man, and the man has the appear- ance of being hugged to death by the brute who has him in his grasp. In both of these pipes the bowl is small, and the place for the insertion of the stem is almost the same size as the bowl. These were found in Southwestern Kentucky.
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The most exquisitely striking pipe that has been found in Kentucky is represented on page 279. It is made of black soapstone. The bowl is one inch in diameter, while around it is a projection very thin and measuring four and one half inches. The length of the stem is nine and one half inches, while the diameter of the hole along which the smoke was carried is about one eighth of an inch. The width of the piece of material through which the stem hole passes is two inches. The thickness of the stem is about three fourths of an inch at the widest part. The stone is quite soft, and the hole may pos- sibly have been drilled by a piece of cane. The object is highly polished in all of its parts.
The pictures of pipes on pages 276-82, 287-95, and 295-96 will show the different forms and sizes of these objects. In the collection of the author are something like four hundred pipes, made of all sorts of materials, in many differing shapes. No two are really alike, and they display in their manufacture great originality and genius. They have been found in every part of the State, large ones and small ones, covering all parts of the Commonwealth's territory; some in mounds, some in graves, some scattered over the surface. All show not only that there must have been a large population, but that there was ex- tended use of tobacco among the people of the mound- building period in Kentucky. No soil could have been found by the Mound Builder that would have yielded more generous returns for his labor in producing the plant; and as Kentucky now produces a very large part of all the tobacco grown in the world, it is possible that in these early days the Kentucky farmer had his tobacco patch and cured his crop and was ready to barter it to
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his red brother who would bring to him catlinite, steatite, shells, small and large, and other trinkets, which went to make up the things essential to the comfort as well as the luxury of his family.
There was constant expectation for quite a while of finding in some well-preserved form the deposit or residuum on the sides of the bowl which the smoke would make in the receptacle which was used for holding tobacco, but only in one instance has there been such indications as would show at all conclusively that the pipe had been used for any great period of time. The tobacco and the cane and the stone, all found in great abundance in Kentucky, put readily into the hands of the smoker all the necessary things to provide him with a convenient, comfortable, and tasteful pipe for the exercise of the smoking habit. Many of the designs of these pipes are taken from Nature, but very many of them show the development of really artistic talent.
DISCOVERIES IN KENTUCKY CAVES.
Those familiar with archeological research in Europe will recall that through caves are found the most satis- factory evidences of the habits, food, and clothing of primitive man. These were used as places of abode or refuge, and from the débris and ash-heaps of the sub- strata of the cavern floors the antiquarian has acquired the most reliable information as to what manner of man he was, and how and when he lived. In the occupancy of caverns in America, there is no prehistoric period cor- responding with the "Cave Period" of Europe. Many of the caverns of Kentucky were used by the aborigines
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PIPES-FROG EFFIGIES
PIPES-BOAT IMITATION AND ARTISTIC ORNAMENTATION [ 295 ]
CATLINITEIPIPES Diameter of largest disk, six and one half inches; length of bowl, nine inches
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as depositories of the dead, and several show that they were used, at least temporarily, as places of habitation, or retreat from enemies in times of danger; yet this occupancy was not of great antiquity, but seems rather to have been contemporaneous with the mound-building period.
In the limestone which lies below the coal measures of Kentucky is a remarkable development of cavern structure. The late Professor N. S. Shaler estimated that there is an area of at least eight thousand. square miles where the subcarboniferous limestone lies in a position suitable to the formation of caves. The layers of this range in thickness from a few feet to three hundred and even more. In Edmonson and adjacent counties underground streams, the waters of which, charged with carbonic acid gas and aided by the mechanical action of particles of the sandstone above and pebbles from the flint beds of the limestone itself, have carved out, by a slow but irresistible process, wonderful caverns ranging tier upon tier, which for majestic size and beauty are without rivals. In Edmonson and Hart counties the writer has investigated three of the most wonderful of these caves, all in close proximity to each other, the entrances of which could be covered by an equilateral triangle measuring hardly more than three miles. These are Mammoth Cave, of world-wide reputation; Colossal Cavern, but recently discovered and noted for its magnificence, and Salts Cave, from which have been taken some of the most remarkable prehistoric textile fabrics and vegetable remains ever brought to light. Several other caves in this vicinity have also yielded relics of rare interest to the archeolo- gist. In Short Cave, eight miles from Mammoth Cave,
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was found the so-called American Mummy, exhibited many years ago at Mammoth Cave and now deposited in the National Museum at Washington. Connected with Colossal Cavern is a small cave known as the Bed Quilt Cave, so named because of the finding there, some years ago, of an Indian mat resembling a quilt.
Salts Cave, the most prolific in prehistoric relics and rivaling even Mammoth Cave in the size and grandeur of its avenues and chambers, was known nearly one hun- dred years ago, and though often visited has never been thoroughly explored, and little has been written of its remarkable evidences of prehistoric life. In fact, apart from the few accounts of the so-called Mammoth Cave Mummy, published in the early part of the last century, no scientific study of cave life in Kentucky was under- taken until Professor F. W. Putnam, of the Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology, together with members of the Kentucky Geological Survey, vis- ited and partly explored Salts Cave, and gave to the world an account of some of the wonderful things which, through this cave, were traced to the people who inhab- ited Kentucky centuries ago.
There appears to be practically nothing written on the early discovery of this remarkable place. There is one date in the cave as early as 1818. It has been the custom of many visitors in these and various caves to inscribe by some method their names on the gloomy walls, and thus leave behind them evidence of their presence at a given period. The next date so far discovered is 1843, and this is accompanied by the names of persons who were well known in the vicinity, and recalled to have lived in the neighborhood about that period. No definite
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statement as to the discovery of Salts Cave can be found in any printed matter which is attainable. After inquiry among the oldest men now residing in that locality, in- cluding Squire O. P. Shackelford and Mr. A. B. Johnson, both of whom have lived all their lives near the place, it is probable that the first white man who ever saw the cave was William West, who it is said patented the land covering it about 1794. Squire Shackelford distinctly recollects his father telling him, when he was quite a young man, that the cave was explored first by Peter Kinser, who, upon entering it, remained in it a week examining its passages, and Squire Shackelford's wife found a moc- casin in Salts Cave in 1851.
The Mammoth Cave and other caves in the vicinity were explored for the purpose of securing saltpeter during the War of 1812, but Salts Cave, although containing large quantities of the elements from which saltpeter could be made, does not appear to have been invaded for this purpose. There are places in the walls of the cave which indicate that some kind of digging had been car- ried on, but it is the opinion of those who have been most observant of these matters that these excavations, which are quite extensive, were made by the prehistoric people. The condition of the walls now shows that the excavations were made with sharp-pointed instruments, such as are now found in the cave, similar to the sticks used for planting tobacco, cabbages, and other vegetables. In one portion of the wall there are disturbances of the earth which contains clay apparently akin to ochre. Markings on this clayey material show that it was scratched or torn loose by the use of sharp-pointed wooden digging implements.
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In 1893 Mr. Theodore F. Hazen, since deceased, and his wife opened a new entrance into Salts Cave more easy of access than that described by Professor Putnam, and nearer to the great central chambers and larger avenues of this wonder of Nature, and undertook a more thorough exploration of its labyrinths. From them we obtained many interesting relics, which aroused a desire to know more of this cave and the home life of the people who once occupied it. In 1894 the author first visited this place, gaining access by the Hazen entrance, which has since become closed by a fall of rocks and earth. Now the only available entrance is about a quarter of a mile from Sell's store, just within the Hart County line. The mouth, difficult and even dangerous of access, lies at the bottom of a deep sinkhole, and is but a few feet in diam- eter. A stream of water from a small spring above trickles over the entrance and into the cavern, quickly losing itself in the masses of rock which have fallen from the roof. This aperture, just sufficiently large to admit the body of a man, gives little promise to the explorer of the wonders awaiting him in this great temple of darkness and night.
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