and made a huge pipe by turning it in his hand, which he smoked over them, to
the north, the south, the east, and the west, and told that this stone was red,—that
it was their flesh,—that they must use it for their pipes of peace,—that it
belonged to them all,—and that the war-club and scalping-knife must not be
raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into a great
cloud, and the whole surface of the rock for several miles was melted and
glazed. Two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women (guardian spirits
of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; and they are heard there yet, (Tso-
mec-cos-tu and Tso-me-cos-te-won-du,) answering to invocations of the high
priests or medicine-men, who consult them when they are visitors to this sacred
place.
The reader will remember, perhaps, the allusion to the Peace-pipe in
Longfellow’s “Hiawatha,”—
“On the mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-stone quarry,
Gitche Manito, the Mighty,
He the Master of Life, descending,
On the red crags of the quarry
Stood erect, and called the nations,
Called the tribes of men together.
From his footprints flowed a river,
Leaped into the light of morning,
O’er the precipice plunging downward,
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.
And the Spirit, stooping earthward,
With his finger on the meadows,
Traced a winding pathway for it,
Saying to it, ‘Run in this way!’
From the red stone of the quarry
With his hand he broke a fragment,
Moulded it into a pipe-head,
Shaped and fashioned it with figures;
From the margin of the river
Took a long reed for a pipe-stem,
With its dark green leaves upon it;
Filled the pipe with bark of willow;
With the bark of the red willow;