Pipestone || Opwagan Assin

What is it?...What we are calling "pipestone" in this article is referring to a particular stone known commonly by American Indian people by that name. This article is about that particular stone, which is called Opwagan Assin in the Ojibway language. 

Other cultures made sacred pipes from different stones or other materials, such as the many stone pipes of the Mississippi River culture.

This article is about the stone called "pipestone" in English, a red stone which comes from a particular area of Minnesota.

This stone is a sacred resource for the peoples who follow the original instructions known as "Sacred Pipe". Because it is a portable commodity, it is also found in limited quantities on the open market and is used in a variety of commercial products.

Pipestone is found in a tiny quarry in Pipestone, Minnesota. There are also several other deposits of the stone on private land. In recent years private land owners have made efforts to market this stone.

It is used as a sacred spiritual and religious resource in only a small number of tribes in the north historically. To most other tribal groups of American Indians it is identified as an American Indian historical stone but is not considered sacred....in other words, Pipestone is a sacred stone to some, but not all American Indian tribes.

The original history of Pipestone is for the use in sacred mystery life objects. The most powerful and important of these sacred objects is the Sacred Pipe.

In this document we will look at some little known information about this stone. There are a lot of misunderstandings and questions around the world about this stone. To date very little good published information on the Pipestone is available. We hope to at least contribute something useful to the small library of information available on this precious and important American Indian sacred resource.

Pipestone is an extremely high quality carving stone. It is acquired and admired by artisans all over the world. Many people like to carve this stone, and carve far to often what they perceive as "indian pipes" in particular. This activity is very popular. Many of these artisans will carve this stone and then call what they have made "sacred". This is entirely incorrect.

What makes a tribal object sacred is the ceremonies, rites and rituals, and breath and blessings of the tribal elders and sacred people of the tribal community. An object carved in pipestone is NOT sacred in any way until it has the breath, permission and blessings of these tribal elders and traditional authority. Artisans carving this stone need to know and understand the difference. People need to use language correctly. In most traditional tribal societies it was considered very important to take responsibility for the words coming out of your mouth when talking about the sacred. When artisans carve a red stone and call it "sacred" they are mistaken at best....and they are possibly committing cultural and spiritual fraud. They are clearly being quite lazy about language.

In a free society it is not possible to stop people from selling, stealing or trading pipestone to artists around the world. The United States government has recognized that Pipestone is a unique sacred and religious tribal resource. The Pipestone Monument, where the stone is found, is part of the National Park system. Only federally recognized tribal enrolled members can make applications to quarry small amounts of this stone. However, the government provides no protections beyond this. Where the stone ends up and with whom is beyond anyone's control.

Self Control is a great concept to bring into this discussion. Perhaps with good information, more people around the world will choose to exercise some. You can make choices that help a situation like this, or ignore and disrespect the wishes and hopes of the tribal elders. You have that much power.

It would be a matter of great assistance and respect to tribal elders and leadership if more people looked for good information before they spoke or acted out about American Indian sacred objects and teachings. There are so many misunderstandings. Many of the tribal people we might most like to hear from keep silent. They do not want to get into an intellectual mythological argument. They do not want to deal with the very negative rage projected around tribal communities by self-appointed "protectors" who yell and scream and point fingers every time a tribal person tries to speak for the public record.

For many people around the world, including many Native Americans from other tribal groups, Pipestone is just a rock, a good carving stone. There is most likely nothing that can ever be done to change this situation. The Tewa, for example, use it in their jewelry and art. They make some of the most beautiful art in the world. They know it is from American Indian history but they think of it (mostly) as a rock for putting in jewelry and carving. Many other people in other tribes carve pipes even though their culture has no histoy or ceremonies of pipes. People are free to do what they want everywhere. There is a difference between freedom and what is right. American Indians are themselves guilty of saying and doing very disrespectful things about pipes and pipestone.

Many modern people often know more about the sacred ideas of tribes than many American Indians do. Many tribes have no interest or knowledge in the sacred of another tribe. This is an example of the poor communications which truly exist on these subjects out in the world, but also among tribes. Differing cultures remain reluctant and resistant to sharing or even knowing about information on the sacred of another tribe.

People all over the world mistakenly believe that Pipestone or "indian pipes" are used by all American Indians. This is not true, or even possible. Oklahoma, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin,Minnesota, and New England are the strongest centers of sacred pipe at this time. Historically there were also the Creek and Mississippi Cultures.

I have quarried PipeStone and have carved it for more than 40 years, almost all my adult life. Many of the objects I carve with this stone are used in ceremonies by qualified ceremonial people. I have carved some beautiful art pieces with PipeStone and these have gone to people whom I admire and trust.

Visiting the small quarry of Pipestone Minnesota  is about a one hour drive from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It is a small "park" operated by the United States Parks Service. There are several modest camping areas in the small village of Pipestone. On a good day if you talk the self-guided walk through the monument grounds you may encounter several great Native Americans who work with the parks department. You can find them on the path, in a quiet and beautiful setting. Sitting at traditional and very interesting  carving benches they make all sorts of little PipeStone articles for the monument. You can have a great conversation with these people if you know how. There are several families who are de-facto guardians of the monument. They have been sitting with the monument for many generations and know the real story better than most. there is a particular group of Chippewa (Ahnishinabe-Ojibwe) who have long worked at the monument. They have evolved a particular turtle carving that is very popular. This little Ojibway Turtle design has gone all over the world.

Warning || The documentation about PipeStone at the government web site is very narrow, and seems largely manufactured. It overlooks a giant mountain of history of the use of this stone by Woodland Tribes and attributes incorrectly various bands of Sioux tribes as the developers of the resource. The Plains people did not arrive in their current location until about  years ago. The Algonquian-Ahnishinabek cultures occupied this region for thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Plains Tribes. They are the ones who "discovered" this sacred resource and the ones who developed trade routes for the sacred stone all the way to the Pacific Coast and down into the Aztec and Toltec Cultures.

This article will not reveal any tips on carving this stone. I would rather you searched for and found living tribal teachers to give your stone to them....or ask them to help you understand this unique and special standing stone relation from the American Earth. Most of tribal teachers and religious leaders around the cultures near to Pipestone object to its commercial use. 

The Siouxian tribes in particular quarry an enormous amount of the PipeStone to make collectors items, including "pipes" for the art market. More than 60 families presently make this work. They are by far the most voluminous contributors to the commercialization of Pipestone. Ironically, they remain the most hysterical and voluminous voice against this very practice. They carve it with electric drills and big metal files. The people of this tribal group (Lakota) are both the largest abusers of selling tribal pipes to collectors and the loudest voice in complaining about and condemning the use of this stone for commercial purposes. 

The land around Pipestone, Minnesota, itself is historically and culturally the original lands of the Ahnishinabe (Ojibway, Potowatami, Winnebago, etc) tribal group. It was this group, the Northern Woodland tribes that first used this stone for sacred and ceremonial objects, hundreds of generations before the Lakota people arrived on the plains. Old carved objects from these tribes have been found dating back several thousands of years. Precise data is not easy to come by. By far, the earliest designs of objects made from this stone are woodland tribal objects, of this there is no question.

Real Pipestone is found only at and around Pipestone Minnesota. Some people like to say there is a similar stone in Arizona or Canada or some other place. It is not true. There are other red stones that resemble PipeStone but they are not chemically or geologically similar in any way. I have examined many of the stones for which the claims are made. Their chemistry and method of origination is geographically unrelated. 

The particular effects of being pressed against the high crystal content of quartzite has made pipestone something of a battery or storage place for quartz-related energy. There are many interesting speculations about the effects of quartz-bearing material on the human organ and energy systems. There are strong scientific investigations that demonstrate the spectrographic revelations of material infused with quartz energy. It has been shown consistently that quartzite under pressure produces electro magnetic pulses of measurable and sustained levels. Pipestone from the Pipestone Quarry area has an elevated measurement of electromagnetic pulses than the other stones often associated with tribal pipe carving. In this way Pipestone is quite unique.

Pipestone loves the human body. If you have ever seen a carving made from pipestone that has been handled by people over many years, the patina is profoundly rich and beautiful. If you hold even a large piece in your hand, after some time it will become hot. It certainly has healing properties that are not at all well understood. Its ability to receive energy from another person is very quick, and very unique among stones. 

Hand tools can work with Pipestone very well. manual hand tools. The use of electric power tools to work this stone is considered disrespectful. Some of the old teachers say using power tools on the stone kills its spirit. All of my work with this stone is done with simple hand tools. All of the objects, including Sacred Pipes, in the ceremonies I participate in are made in this way. The old Indians say a pipe made with a machine can never be made sacred, because the machine kills the living spirit of the stone. I have always believed this. If the stone is much to hard to use hand tools, then it is not the right stone. However, most of this stone is probably carved with power tools these days. One can only hope that at least the thinking of the people who have such a long history with this stone have an opinion on its use that some will consider.

There are a group of documents in this series about the Original Instructions, the tribal sacred. People seem much more interested in finding out about this stone and how to carve it than they do in understanding the sacred ideas behind it. This is evident by the statistics regarding visits on this group of documents. To those people one can only hope that this information will penetrate to a place of balance between arrogance and desire, and what is right. People believe they have the freedom to do whatever they want. In fact, they do. People who hold the sacred of the American Indian elders do not exercise their freedom without taking into consideration the intentions and directions of the keepers and protectors of the sacred. Following the sacred in this way is why we can call it sacred. the essential sacred nature of pipestone is that it is something which has been brought forward in time, and in the souls of human beings, by this tradition of the sacred method.

This charming and historic spiritual rock comes from a tiny little place. Flat. Flat land. Flat people. Somehow it had enough presence about itself to be saved and preserved, after a fashion, by the US Government. I wish I could, and perhaps in the future I will, find out more about how that came about. Without that protection, the stone would have been mined to exhaustion years ago. It is a flagrant and interesting act of the mystery life that this little stone quarry is still alive. It is a limited resource. At this moment it takes a tremendous amount of labor to pull good stone from this hard, heavy quartzite which overlays it. It is getting more laborious each year to get to the limited deposits of pipestone. When I was a boy a man could gather 50 pounds of pipestone in one afternoon. I think today one would have to labor several days to do the same. It is taken with wedges, picks and axes. It is not taken with machines.

It is not right that random people make things with this stone and call it "Indian". A lot of people do this...carve up a pipe and call it an "Indian Pipe", it is self-deception at best and and outright lie at the worst. The old tribal teachers have always believed people should use language correctly and accurately.

The machine and modern merchandising culture has made it possible for people who would otherwise never even hear about this stone to find it in markets, both online and here and there in physical markets. New deposits on private land are presently under the control of private people who are marketing their private resource. All of the so-called new deposits of this stone are on private land in the same geologic strata as the stone at the Pipestone Monument. It is deep-mined by machines. To tribal people it is a mixed situation. Those who are most traditional are against it and suspicious of it. People who make money as stone-carvers, tribal and non-tribal people, seem all for it. As a long-time carver of this stone I can feel and see a clear difference between the stone from the monument and other sources. The stone from the monument is higher quality and has a different patina from the private deposits.

There is very little reliable information available on the subject of Pipestone.

Geologically it is a substrate pigmented mud which being compressed under beds of Sioux Quartzite enormously hard and heavy) over the ages became a soft yet strong and durable carving stone for tribal religious cultures of that region.

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