French Trader’s Peace Pipe Tomahawk – Deepeeka

This French Traders Peace Pipe Tomahawk has a head of high carbon steel which is mounted onto a diamond-shaped haft of polished wood embellished with brass pins. The brass mouthpiece connects to the hollow core haft and allows for the pierced bowl to be used as a pipe by which a pinch of pipe tobacco can be smoked. Care must be taken after use to clean the pipe bowl to ensure that tobacco resin does not harden and clog the pipe.

A powerful symbol of history in North America, the Pipe Tomahawk represents the fusion of European and Native American cultural elements; the use of steel for the axehead came with the Europeans who in admiration for the Native American skill in the use of their stone headed war axes would create their own version in steel. Steel headed Tomahawks were valued trade items and worthy above all were the Pipe Tomahawks. It was Lewis and Clark who brought fifty such axes with them by which to present as gifts to the Native leaders they would encounter.

While often functional these special axes were typically more valued as status symbols and as a tool for diplomacy – the hollow hole drilled in the haft to facilitate its use as a pipe made it less durable than a solid hafted axe and the substantial cost and value associated with them made them less likely to receive rough use.

To a native Chief a Pipe Tomahawk could be among his most prized possession and it would be at his side when forging alliances and navigating diplomacy for these Pipes had a deep symbology in them. The axehead is ostensibly a weapon for war, but when used to smoke a communal pipe smoke it becomes a symbol of friendship and peace. Thus in his hand the Chief held the axe of war and the pipe of peace – how his diplomacy fared may well dictate which end of his axe he bears to the leader opposite him.