AmethystGuys Artifacts

[hodgehound]

Posting these pics for Jason........

[nose2ground]

tell Jason I will be heading over soon to help take pics of his collection - I may even be willing to take some home with me to clean them ;D

[dixieeuhedrals]

some of the pictures remind me of a song by weezer !

[amythestguy]

These I put up for arrapaho Joe. The top 2 pics are the same thing that 4corners found that he posted a while ago, It was used for smashing buffalo bones to get the marrow out. IT WAS NOT USED AS ANY TYPE OF WEAPON! The next pics are a pipe from pipestone, Minnesota. Let me explain how my family got this pipe. My family is from South Dakota. They moved out there even before it was open to homesteading around 1899-1900. When my grandfather was 8 or 9 years old my greatgrandfatehr took him to a pow-wow near the white river in 1912 or 1913. As one of the warriors was parading on his horse down the path his pipe fell out of the sash attached to his horse. As the indian rode on my grandfather being a young boy saw it and ran out and grabbed it off the ground and kept it. He got to keep the piupe part while his best friend kept the stem. Throughout the rest of his life he learned all he could about the plains indians, especially the sioux which lived all around them. He became one of the foremost experts on plains indians and wrote a few books also. He used to tell me about these pipes but I was young so I had to ask my Dad to reiterate for me. These pipes are called pipestones and they are from pipestone, missesota like I said. They were highly valued and only important members of a tribe would have one ie. chiefs, medicine men, certain warriors. They were traded all over including to tribes from the North-west, south-west, and some have even been found in the south-east and other than the sioux only the chiefs or medicine men of other tribes had one. The reason they were only for important folks in a tribe was because you had to trade quite a bit to acquire one so you had to be somewhat "wealthy" to get one. These pipes were passed down from one generation to the next and my grandfather said this pipe was easily over 150 years old and could be 300 years old and that was from 1913. One of the carvings on the top is of an indian in head regalia and the carvings on the side are of a leaf with a flower. The carvings were done by the indians who mined the stone and carved them at pipestone the santee sioux. They traded most of them with carvings already on them. The picture at the bottom is our farm in South Dakota my grandfather died along time ago so no one lives there but we still keep it up and have other farmers farm the land for us. At the bottom of the picture with the farmhouse is a field. The next field over, which is out of the picture, is where my grandfather and Dad were plowing one day, over 50 years ago, and uncorved some bones. They dug them up and found horses bones and human bones. The university of south dakota came out and took the bones back with them. Now a days the tribes would demand the bones be reburied and not taken for study. When a warrior died they would build a sccafolding and place his body on top and them kill his buffalo horse to place beside him on the ground. Sometimes a tree was used if they did not have enough wood. The only time they buried there dead was if they went on a war party and did not want to have the other tribe mutilate the body. Right at the top of the pic of the farmhouse out of view is the bottom of Buffalo Butte. Half of it is on our property. The butte is about 800-1000 feet tall. It is the only high place or butte for 30 miles around. It just rises out of the praire. On top of this butte is 5 stacked towers of stone. They are hundreds of years old. Everytime we climb the butte we help restack the stones as they fall down over time. They are 6-8 feet tall. For the longest time my grabdfather thought they were water signs for other indians. He later found out they were used for navigation(street signs so to speak). When the southern tribes would travel norht to go to meetings or pow wows they used these 5 towers of stacked stones to determine where to go or which path to take. On the other end of this butte there is a circle of stones which my Dad always played in and thought it was a fort when he was young. This is where the braves would come to have there visions. At around 12 or 13 years of age they would go to the top and cleanse there bodies and sit facing the sun for days and have vision which would determine there path in life. They would also lay down on there backs with a tuft of rabbit fun and be very still and twitch the fur to attract eagles. Sometimes they would do this for days. Once and eagle saw this and swooped down they would grab it. Instead of stabbing it or breaking it's neck they had to suffocate it. An eagle was a sacred animal so you could not just kill it you had to suffocate it so it's spirit coulkd go on. Lots of braves got hurt real bad while doing this as you can imagine the eagle was not to happy and would claw there hands, arms, and faces. This is how they got there feathers which they would use or trade. Before the indians had horses they would winter over right where our farm is. It is on the SE side of the butte so it would keep the NW blowing winds away from them. Once they had horses they would just follow the buffalo. My greatgrandfather, who my dad took care of in his later years, used to smoke with an indian named George Firecloud whose father fought against General Custer. He used to tell my greatgrandfather the stories of the old ones and there ways. George Firecloud gave my greatgrandfathera blanket called a bleeding heart blanket. Thse blanket were made around 1879-1880 and telled the story of the last free sioux. They were made from horse hair and porcupine needles and told a story on them. Well my greatgrandfather gave the blanket to one of our relatives from Missouri. This is around 1950 or so. My Dad still curses to this day that his grandfather did that because these relatives could have cared less and probably threw it away within a few years they just didn't care about that type of thing. These blankets are extremely rare and worth a bunch of money and should be in a museum and my Dad wishes he could have kept it him self so it would be preserved and put in a proper place. We didn't get to talk to much about this stuff at the roundup, Joe, so next time we dig you can talk to my Dad about all this stuff or if you have any questions. If you remind me I will bring the pipe for you to look at to. If you ever have a chance to go up there with me we have lots more artifacts still on the farm including hundreds of arrowheads a few stone beads and a arrow straightner made out of stone. I could also take you to the Rosebud reservations ad let you talk to some of the old ones.
*This info was told to me by either my grandfather or my father.

oh yea also on the south side of the butte there has been a rock slide. The old ones who used to visit with my greatgrandfather would tell him the folklore about that slide. They said a white buffalo would enter a cave that used to be there and it was to be left alone and not pursued or seen as he was sacred and it was his sacred place. Well, one day a young brave couldn't resist the temptation to see the white buffalo so he snuck up the side of the butte to peer in the cave and as he did so the side of the butte collapsed and trapped the white buffalo inside the cave where he still reside to this day. That is all I can remeber about this story. My grandfather used to tell it to me when I was young and we used to hike up there to look at where the cave used to be. I am sure there is more to the story but I don't remember I am sure my Dad knows more about it.

[abuelito]

hey jason great information,really like information about indians ok,,,thanks friend :-*ab

[hodgehound]

WOW That is so cool! We need pics of all the places you talked about.

[arappaho]

Cool stuff, Jason, and really great history!
Those "Catlinite" Pipes are steeped in mystery and lore, and
that's a real Beauty! I'm glad to hear you have the connection
you do with some of its history. The farm in South Dakaota, below
the butte, sounds like its' a fairly large slice of history, and
prehistory, in itself.
When we going?
Can we stay at the farm?
How much rock do you think is covering the entrance to that
cave?
;D ;D

Ya know I've always wanted to try and carve a pipe like that, but
I've always wanted the material to come from Pipestone,MN.
And I've always liked the Dakotas. Back in my late teens I used
to hitchhike around the midwest building concrete grain silos and
did a few in North and South Dakota.( Had to run from a few
warriors even in those days. ;D) But I wasn't interested in rock
collecting then.

Thanks for the pics, Jason, but don't ever bring that pipe to a dig
on my account. I would really hate to see it get broken.
And I look forward to sitting around a fire with you and Pops soon.
Joe

[raqy]

Amazing. All of it.. Thanks for the pics and the tales behind them.

[4cornersrocks]

hehe I know that weezer song too...

Jason, awesome story and artifacts. It is unreal how the pipe was aquired. I like that maul too, looks a little familiar. :)Pipestone is cool stuff to work with, I've been making some pipes with some hand tools lately out of minnesota pipestone, it is nice to put the machines up sometimes and go sit in the yard with a rasp. The carvings on that pipe are awesome btw, gives me cool ideas.

If anyone needs some pipestone pm me, I have some of the red Minnesota material, lots of it has small pyrite cubes in it too, looks a lot like the material the pipe is made of. You can cut it with a hacksaw if you don't have a rock saw and then work it with rasps, sandpaper, etc. If you want it to look nice and shiney like the pipe in this thread use some melted beeswax, rub it on the pipe with a cotton cloth then buff it with a rag and cold water.