Indiana's Iowa, Omaha, Osage Oneota Hopewell Sioux Mound Builder Pipes

   Disk pipes of the heavy type have found in the ceremonial bundles of the Iowa, Omaha, and Osage ( Siouan tribes), provided with stems fitted in such a manner that the disks were used for the bowls. This same type of pipe is characteristic of the Oneota culture centering in Nebraska and Iowa and strongly suspected of Siouan identity. We in Indiana are particularly interested in this form, for it was the characteristic one of the celebrated site near the Wabash dug in 1898 by Clifford Anderson. More on the Oneota and Osage IndiansThese pipes, together with coiled-copper ear ornaments, cylindrical copper beads, and a small triangular arrow points, suggest Siouan relationships.

   This is considered a very old type of pipe, no file marks having been found on any specimens examined. Since pipestems were considered so important for decorative and symbolic purposes at the time of discovery, and since the oldest of these disk pipes probably had no stems, it is quite probable that they are very old form. The disk pipe found in the Upper Mississippi and Ohio Valleys and in the western parts of the Middle Atlantic States.