Catlinite, Argillite, and Terracotta Pipes

Catlinite, argillite, and terracotta are three materials belonging to a much older layer of pipe history than briar. All three are stone or clay in origin; all three took shape in the hands of a particular geography and the community living there. In this respect they differ from the mass-production bowl materials of the industrial age: the standard here isn't a workshop catalogue but tradition.

Catlinite (Pipestone)

Geologically, catlinite is a metamorphosed mudstone squeezed into thin layers within the Sioux quartzite formation; in this respect it's considered a type of argillite. It's soft enough to be worked with hand tools, and its reddish color deepens as it's polished. In the literature it often appears directly under the name "pipestone." The main quarries lie around Pipestone in southwestern Minnesota. Traces of human activity in the area now within the Pipestone National Monument's boundaries stretch back more than three thousand years; the stone's use can be traced in written records back to at least the 17th century.

The person the material is named after is George Catlin, the American painter who painted the region's Native peoples and who, according to the record, visited the quarries in 1835. The stone's central importance in Plains culture is ceremonial: the bowl of the ceremonial calumet pipe, known as the peace pipe, is carved mostly from this stone. Today, the right to quarry stone within the monument grounds is reserved solely for enrolled members of Native communities, and the carving tradition continues.