Clay Tobacco Pipes are not uncommonly recovered from burials. A plain terra
cotta bowl was recovered from the grave of Jacko Finley at Spokane House in
excavations by Louis Caywood from 1950 to 1953. It is in the Cheney Cowles
Museum in Spokane, Washington. An anthropomorphic female effigy pipe (probably
of French manufacture) has been recovered from the Nez Perce Alpaweyma Burial
site (45-AS-81, burial no.52) near the mouth of Alpowa Creek and the Snake
River in Asotin County, Washington. (Rodeffer, Rodderfer, & Sprague, 1972, Nez
Perce Grave Removal Project: A Preliminary Report, University of Idaho
Anthropological Research Manuscript Series 5:48, 81-83). It is from an infant
burial with a minimum inital date of interment after 1850. It is illustrated
and described in Pfeiffer, Michael A., 1982, Clay Tobacco Pipes and the Fur
Trade of the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains, M.A. Thesis, Univ. of
Idaho, Moscow, pp. 130-131.
If one keeps looking, I bet there are a lot more of these puppies hidden in
small circulation reports of excavations. 1850 is a little late for "colonial"
even in the Pacific Northwest. Jacko Finley was a fur trader for the Northwest
Company (if I remember correctly) and was buried approximately in the 1820s.
It would interesting to see if someone comes up with a time frame for this
phenomenon. Good hunting.
Smoke Pfeiffer
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Smoke (Michael A. ) Pfeiffer
Archaeologist
Ozark-St. Francis National Forests
605 West Main Street
Russellville, AR 72801
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