Catlinite pipe bowl

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Elbow Pipe Bowl, c.1850-96
North American, Plains, Sioux people
Catlinite

Donated by Sir James K Caird, 1896
Museum number 1896-8-3

Pipes and tobacco were sacred and integral to the prayers and religious rituals of the Sioux people. They jealously guarded the quarry which yielded the catlinite used to make pipes, which they traded with other tribes and, later, to Europeans.