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pipe tomahawk
pipe tomahawk
pipe tomahawk
Tomahawk pipe, decorated with silver bands and motifs. Shawnee, found in Kansas. Collected by William Bragge, and purchased from W. Wareham by the British Museum in 1882.
Jonathan King has identified this item as Shawnee, because they often decorated items with silver.
Created with information from the British Museum accession record.
Read More About This Relative
Iron blade and pipe bowl, with a dark wooden stem. Silver inlay decorates the stem and the mouthpiece.
Decorated with silver inlaid stripes and shapes.
There are 5 silver bands on pipe stem. Between the bands are diamond and leaf motifs. From the mouthpiece, there are 2 silver diamonds, 1 silver leaf, and 1 silver diamond. Each motif is edged with rows of undulating lines, etched into the silver. A crescent moon shape is inlaid into the tomahawk, and there is a small silver tomahawk image beneath the mouthpiece.
Provenance
Purchased by the British Museum in 1882 from W. Wareham and collected by William Bragge. The British Museum purchased this item using the Christy Fund, five thousand pounds set aside by the English ethnologist Henry Christy to be used to further his collection after his death.
In 1999, it was shown in the British Museum's North America Gallery, in the First peoples, first contacts section. Also featured in the British Museum's touring Thunderbird and Lightning exhibition.
JCH King, 'Thunderbird and Lightning,' 1977, p.56.
About This GRASAC Record
Unknown Shawnee artist, pipe tomahawk. Currently in the British Museum, Am,Dc.75. Item photographed and described as part of a GRASAC research trip December 2007; GRASAC item id 26420.
This record was created as part of a Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC) research trip to the Pitt Rivers Museum and British Museum, December 8-22 2007, funded by a grant from the International Opportunities fund of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Researchers present: Heidi Bohaker (HB), John Borrows (JB), Lindsay Borrows (LB), Alan Corbiere (AC), Jonathan King (JK), Henrietta Lidchi (HL), Stacey Loyer (SL), Janis Monture (JM), Bruce Morito (BM), Ruth Phillips (RP), Anne De Stecher (AS), Cory Willmott (CW).