Medicine-pipe – Piegan

Description

Medicine-pipes, of which the Piegan have many, are simply long pipe-stems variously decorated with beads, paint, feathers, and fur. Each one is believed to have been obtained long ago in some supernatural manner, as recounted in a myth. The medicine-pipe is ordinarily concealed in a bundle of wrappings, which are removed only when the sacred object is to be employed in healing sickness, or when it is to be transferred from one custodian to another in exchange for property. Such exchanges, occurring at intervals of a few years in the history of each pipe, are attended by much ceremony