This signed pipe of Sitting Bull was obtained through Bone Club (Tomahawk), who lived near Wakpala on the Standing Rock Reservation. Bone Club was a bodyguard and lieutenant for Sitting Bull. He escaped to Canada with Sitting Bull, after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. For four years the Hunkpapa band of Sitting Bull survived on buffalo, but when food became scarce, 172 Lakota surrendered at Fort Buford, North Dakota on July 20, 1881, and most offered amnesty. After being arrested, Bone Club and Sitting Bull were sent to Fort Randall as prisoners of war. While there, Sitting Bull learned, in cursive style, to sign his name. After several years, Sitting Bull was freed and joined Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show in 1885 for four months, even traveling with the show to Europe. He was portrayed, at the conclusion of each performance, as the one who killed Custer, to received "boos" and "hisses" from the crowd. Later he moved back to the Standing Rock Reservation where its Indian agent required Sitting Bull to remove his medicine objects, or face imprisonment. The agent had Indian police watch Sitting Bull to ensure he would comply with his orders and not be a threat during the new Ghost Dance Movement. To avoid arrest by Indian police, Bone Club hid Sitting Bull's medicine items. Both were members of a warrior society, called Night Eaters, which met secretly at midnight to conduct ceremonies using Sitting Bull’s chanunpe (prayer pipe).
On December 15, 1890, Sitting Bull was arrested at 5:30 a.m. in his log cabin by Indian police and killed in the melee, along with damage to pipes he hid in his cabin. The pipes in the cabin that survived the attack were treasured by his family. Forty years after the Freedom of Religion Act of 1978 when it became legal for Indians to own sacred objects, this pipe stem was sold, following the yearly ceremony on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to honor Tatanka Iyotanka, Sitting Bull. The elderly relatives were getting older and needed to cover medical expenses, and realized the younger Lakota had little interest in things from the Buffalo Days. The pipe bowl was obviously well-used with its dings and scratches. It was learned much later, the tiyospaye (relatives) of Sitting Bull had either forgotten, or never knew, this pipe was signed by their grandfather. To their credit, it takes diligent searching and the bowl held at a precise angle, to see the name: Sitting Bull.
Lakota historians, Chris Ravenshead and Winfried Narr, both fluent Lakota-speakers, provided much of the above information gathered from tiyospaye of Sitting Bull in their Lakota tongue. There is credibility knowing the pipe came from heirs of Sitting Bull and carried a signature they did not know existed. This well-used bowl certainly was a special pipe to have been signed by the holy man, Sitting Bull.
This Catlinite pipe has the squared front favored by Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa band. Both its carved front area and bowl have eight smooth sides. The bowl’s top opening has a tapered smoke hole, as found on early pipes, with considerable tar build-up from many ceremonies. The bowl's upper rim has several small chips from the custom of tapping a pipe on rocks, following a ceremony, to remove ashes. Sitting Bull's name can be faintly seen on the orange side of the pipe, likely etched using an awl’s tip, such as Sitting Bull’s wife would carry in an awl case on her belt.
The pictured pipe stem came from a museum collection in Germany, as noted on the attached document. It is believed the stem was left behind when Sitting Bull went to Europe with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. Its symbolism is the four twists, a sacred number, represent a whirlwind associated with the power of the Thunder Being, Wikinyan. The brass tacks depict hailstones from a thunderstorm.
The ornate pipe tamper was carved from a single piece of wood, showing movable rings and wooden balls inside a cage. A long tamper was a symbol of an important medicine man. Its length permitted all sitting in the tipi, at the conclusion of a ceremony, to view the end of the session when this tamper loosened tobacco residue before the bowl was turned and tapped on a rock for its ashes to return to Mother Earth.
It was believed a Master Stone could offer power to this chanunpe in ceremonies. The pipe was considered “charged” when its male and female parts were joined and tobacco placed inside and pressed with a tamper. This large, round stone was safely kept in a softened buffalo heart skin pouch along with red-colored cloth and sacred gray sage.
Long ago, according to elders, those who owned a Catlinte peace pipe were few in number. It was a long distance to the quarry site in today’s eastern Minnesota quarry, near the border of South Dakota. Although the pinkish mudstone is easy to carve, it took considerable time in the Buffalo Days with primitive tools to shape and drill a pipe bowl. In those days, the right to own a pipe was reserved for use by a holy man, as Sitting Bull, who demonstrated his power to be considered a spiritual leader. He also became a supreme war leader of the Lakota Nation, along with Crazy Horse in 1868, when he rejected the Fort Laramie treaty. Perhaps Sitting Bull is best remembered for “defeating” Custer through his vision depicting hundreds of upside-down soldiers the day before the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
by Larry Belitz, Plains Indian Material Culture Consultant
July 1, 2013 and reworked January 11, 2024