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marks of distinction conferred by them, for they render him who has had that honor a son of the tribe, and naturalize him as such. When the calumet is presented and sung to him, obedience is due to him from the people of the tribe. The calumet constrains and pledges those who have sung it to follow to war the man in whose honor it has been sung; but the same obligation
sacrificial tobacco to the gods, convenience and convention united the already highly symbolic calumet shafts and the sacrificial tobacco altar, the pipe-bowl; hence it became one of the most profoundly sacred objects known to the Indians of northern America. . . The calumet was employed by ambassadors and travelers as a passport; it was used in ceremonies designed to conciliate foreign and hostile nations and to conclude lasting peace to ratify the alliance of friendly tribes; to secure favorable weather for journeys; to bring needed rain; and to attest contracts and treaties which could not be violated without incurring the wrath of the gods. The use of the calumet was inculcated by religious precept and example. A chant and a dance have become known as the chant and the dance of the calumet; together they were employed as an invocation to one or more of the gods. . . The dance and the chant were rather in honor of the calumet than with the calumet . . J. O. Dorsey asserts that the Omaha and cognate names for this dance and chant signify 'to make sacred kinship,' but not 'to dance.' This is the key to the esoteric significance of the use of the calumet The one for whom the dance for the calumet was performed became thereby the adopted son of the performer. . . From Dorsey"s account of the Omaha calumets it is evident that they are together the most highly organized emblems known. to religious observances anywhere; and it is further in evidence that the pipe is an accessory rather than the dominant or chief object in this highly complex synthetic symbol of the source, reproduction and conservation of life. . . By smoking together in the calumet the contracting parties intend to invoke the sun and the other gods as witnesses to the mutual obligations assumed by the parties, and as a guaranty the one to the other that they shall be fulfilled. This is accomplished by blowing the smoke toward the sky, the four world-quarters, and the earth, with a suitable invocation. . . There were calumets for commerce and trade and for other social and political purposes, but the most important were those designed for war and those for peace and brotherhood. . . The use of the calumet, sometimes called 'peace pipe* and "war pipe,' was widespread in the Mississippi Valley generally," from the Chippewa and Cheyenne in the north to the Choctaw and Natchez in the south; "in the Ohio and St Lawrence Valleys and southward its use is not so definitely shown." —J. N. B. Hewitt, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
A document written (1744) by the Jesuit missionary Jacques Eustache le Sueur states that the calumet dance was introduced in 1720 by emissaries from the Foxes among his Abenaki converts on the St Lawrence, in order to seduce the latter from their French alliance; see Wis. Hist Colls., vol. xvii, 194-200. - Ed.