Pipe Item Number: E2597-0 from the National Museum of Natural History

Notes

FROM CARD: "WOOD & IVORY INLAID WITH PEARL SHELL. 1/30/67: THE PIPE STEM WAS NOT LOCATED."As of 2008, no obvious scrimshaw incising/engraving was on this pipe.Possibly Haida. Pipe carved from one piece of wood which is inlaid on sides with rectangles of abalone shell. Iron pins support the the frets. Bone fret is on top of the stem and bone pieces are inlaid into the sides of the bowl which is copper alloy (possibly a piece from a musket barrel?) lined with iron. A lead fill is in the stem. An iron hexagonal nut caps the stem. There is an ethnographic deposit inside the bowl, possibly charred material from being smoked. Has original Peale # label.Old inked writing that is hard to deciper is on the pipe: "U.S. Ex. Ex. 2597 [?aget? - this may possibly be Puget, based on what is on other artifacts] Sd, by [R. P.R. ??]". If this is "R. P. R." then that may stand for R. P. Robinson, the Purser's steward on the U.S.S. Vincennes, and may indicate he was the collector?Per Dr. Mary Malloy, style of pipe E2597 resembles one illustrated in a drawing by Louisa Leila Waterhouse Hawkins in the British Museum collections, Registration number Am2006,Drg.123, fig. 2.; Title "Aboriginal Ornament selected from the International Exhibition London 1862 for Henry Christy"; depicting "a pipe partly of wood; the fire cup is of slate mounted on the square stem inlaid with mother of pearl", British Columbia, Canada. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Am2006-Drg-123 . E2597 and pipe in drawing may be by the same maker?