I called this Instructable originally 'Crazy Horse's Calumet'. But, some members mentioned the 'abusive' use of this Lakota name. Since I never wanted to offend or provocate anyone I decided to change the title. It became 'Counterfeit' Calumet.
Member Joni - see comments - told me that this pipe would surely be loved by the god Bacchus. Touched by his story and wiseness I changed the title one more time. Thanx Joni!
Why a peace-pipe?
My best friend asked me to be his witness at his wedding in a couple of weeks.
His wedding will be very customised and inspired by ancient traditions, he told me.
There will be smoke, streams of beer and a lot of nude people, I understood ;-)
(maybe I understood wrong).
What to offer? Always a difficult question...
My friend's callname (for insiders) is 'Crazy Horse' and all his life he's being passionated by Native American's culture. Inspired by Dances With Wolves - remember that goodbye scene at the end? - I thought about offering him a calumet aka peace-pipe, as a symbol to wish him and his brandnew wife good luck on their mutual way.
The handle was easy: I thought immediately about olive, one of the most beautiful wood-species ever. Nice to find, nice to handle, nice to see.
The pipe-head was more complicated, since I don't have pottery or stone-carving skills.
Why not iron, I thought? Okay, I'm not a professional welder but welding a calumet is within the limits of everyone...
(If you read the comments below you'll see that this item caused a lot of controversy. Even if it's for decorative use, I didn't know that the use of iron in calumet-building shouldn't be take lightly. I like the combination of iron and metal in an artistic way and that's how I see this calumet: a piece of art with no functional or ceremonial use. Keep this in mind, it's artwork.)
This project turned out to the most heavy calumet ever (almost 5 Lbs). This calumet is yak-proof, believe me!
And for all it's big fun to make!
Enjoy!
NOTE: I've build this pipe as if it was smokable and in every step I tried to find the appropriate solutions for this use. If anyone would really build a pipe to smoke (using stone or pottery): you'll find some ideas in the following steps.
This artwork is for decorative use only!!! I used a lot of metal and glue and heating this stuff can cause severe health damage.
So, again: DON'T USE IT FOR SMOKING!!!
You'll need:
- a log
- saw, drill, drill bits
- plane
- angle sander
- band-sander
- some pieces of iron pipe
- welder
- angle-grinder
- safety gear
Member Joni - see comments - told me that this pipe would surely be loved by the god Bacchus. Touched by his story and wiseness I changed the title one more time. Thanx Joni!
Why a peace-pipe?
My best friend asked me to be his witness at his wedding in a couple of weeks.
His wedding will be very customised and inspired by ancient traditions, he told me.
There will be smoke, streams of beer and a lot of nude people, I understood ;-)
(maybe I understood wrong).
What to offer? Always a difficult question...
My friend's callname (for insiders) is 'Crazy Horse' and all his life he's being passionated by Native American's culture. Inspired by Dances With Wolves - remember that goodbye scene at the end? - I thought about offering him a calumet aka peace-pipe, as a symbol to wish him and his brandnew wife good luck on their mutual way.
The handle was easy: I thought immediately about olive, one of the most beautiful wood-species ever. Nice to find, nice to handle, nice to see.
The pipe-head was more complicated, since I don't have pottery or stone-carving skills.
Why not iron, I thought? Okay, I'm not a professional welder but welding a calumet is within the limits of everyone...
(If you read the comments below you'll see that this item caused a lot of controversy. Even if it's for decorative use, I didn't know that the use of iron in calumet-building shouldn't be take lightly. I like the combination of iron and metal in an artistic way and that's how I see this calumet: a piece of art with no functional or ceremonial use. Keep this in mind, it's artwork.)
This project turned out to the most heavy calumet ever (almost 5 Lbs). This calumet is yak-proof, believe me!
And for all it's big fun to make!
Enjoy!
NOTE: I've build this pipe as if it was smokable and in every step I tried to find the appropriate solutions for this use. If anyone would really build a pipe to smoke (using stone or pottery): you'll find some ideas in the following steps.
This artwork is for decorative use only!!! I used a lot of metal and glue and heating this stuff can cause severe health damage.
So, again: DON'T USE IT FOR SMOKING!!!
You'll need:
- a log
- saw, drill, drill bits
- plane
- angle sander
- band-sander
- some pieces of iron pipe
- welder
- angle-grinder
- safety gear
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Signing UpStep 1: Raw shaping the handle
I didn't have a lot of time because the wedding is in a couple of weeks.
Since I decided to make the handle in olive - it would have been a lot easier just to buy a beam of oak and play with it but doing concessions is not my cup of tea - I needed to find a piece of wood already dry.
Why working easy if it can be done so much more complicated?
Many hours in abondoned Southern France's orchards, I spent, until I found a dead three with exactly the log I needed.
I cut a beam of more than two feet long and went back home.
At work:
Plane the log into something straight and flattened. I didn't want a round handle, I wanted it to be ellipsoid.
This is no rocket-science. Feel free to shape it as you like!
Since I decided to make the handle in olive - it would have been a lot easier just to buy a beam of oak and play with it but doing concessions is not my cup of tea - I needed to find a piece of wood already dry.
Why working easy if it can be done so much more complicated?
Many hours in abondoned Southern France's orchards, I spent, until I found a dead three with exactly the log I needed.
I cut a beam of more than two feet long and went back home.
At work:
Plane the log into something straight and flattened. I didn't want a round handle, I wanted it to be ellipsoid.
This is no rocket-science. Feel free to shape it as you like!
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The first time I tried to build a calumet - I must have been 14 years old - I used a piece of elderberry. This is a beautiful spruce with very light and hard wood that's used a lot in flute-making because of it's hollow centers. Easy to drill out.
i honor you, as you have honored me and all those to whom you have responded so generously.
I wish you good luck in all your projects my friend.
I'd probably have gotten mad if all the comments on my instructable were about how I was disrespecting a culture. Personally, I see nothing wrong with a lot of beer and public nudity :) Keep up the good work bartolo
Even in paganism based on European traditions, there are differences in context. In the Greco-Roman traditions, (I'm using this example because that's probably the one most familiar to this audience) there are the Apolonian rites, where the ceremony is high and solemn (not unlike with the Pipe) and you wouldn't see the beer and public nudity that you'd see at a Dyonosian rite. The Diannic traditions are female-only because Diana is a virgin goddess. And so on. (There are probably similar customs in the Celtic, Germanic, Norse, Strega, etc traditions but I don't know as much about them so I'll leave it at that.) Not that beer or guys or nudity are bad, but just that when you're doing any kind of ceremony there are some things that belong there and some things that don't.
To Bartolo's credit, he has accepted corrections and modified his write-up. A lesser person would not do that. And I think this pipe would have a place in an eclectic pagan ceremony, perhaps in a dedication to Bacchus (who can bless weddings very well.) It may not be good to smoke from, because of the metal, but with some slight modification it would probably be good to use as a a brazer or incense burner, to burn fragrant resins or woods that Bacchus would like.
Let me just add one more detail. The 'nudity' frase was not more than a joke. I mean it! You know, besides handworking I love writing, too. Most times I don't even know which way the frases will go and I'll let my fantasy go it's own way. This results in an exagerated, humoristic and sometimes provocative style that some people love and some people hate.
Those who know me better know that most things I'm writing have to be taken with a 'grain of salt', like we say. Do not take everything serious, it's my kind of joking.
So also what I wrote about nudity. Please, I was kidding. Everyone may do what he or her likes to do, as long as there's no harm to others. But going naked in public is not my stuff, search for pictures on the net if you don't believe me ;-)
And thus: never this kind of behavour will be associated with the pipe. Even if it is a decorative one.
Regards to all, bart.
The man known as Crazy Horse was Lakota, and his people are very guarded about the use of his name or its English translation. If you want to make a Calumet-inspired pipe that's ok but please don't call it what it's not, or associate it with what it doesn't belong with (eg, beer and public nudity). Perhaps someone like Thor or Hephaestus would prefer to be associated with a pipe like this.
You said you used metal because you do not know pottery. However, the Lakota Pipe which inspired your design does not have a pottery bowl. The bowl is carved from stone. The preferred stone is red in color and soft in texture, similar to soapstone. Some Pipes use other types of stone in the soapstone family, depending on who is using them and what is available. Some other Native American peoples use pottery pipes, but the Lakota Pipe is made of wood and stone and there are reasons for this, symbolic as well as practical. Metal is not generally used on the Lakota Pipe except perhaps in small amounts for ornamental inlay, and there are symbolic and practical reasons for this as well.
Although this is a very beautiful piece of work, I hope it would be used only for ornamental purposes, not for actual smoking. Iron pipe may be alloyed or finished with metals that are not suitable for inhaling hot vapors though, and it may get very hot. If people burn their hands and get hurt or drop the pipe, this would not be good.
Sorry, I don't mean to be mean here, but I have some Native heritage (Choctaw Apache) and some very dear friends who are Lakota. My Lakota friends would probably say the same thing if they saw this pipe, although they may not say it as kindly.
This is a very beautiful piece of work and I hope you will continue in your art. However, because of certain things I've been given to see and know, I feel I must do my part to help protect the Sacred Pipe and the name of the man they call Crazy Horse.
Therefore I decided to change the original title. I chose 'Counterfeit Calumet' to reflect the idea that it's not a traditional one.
I chose to use iron because I wanted a result corresponding to my artwork-style. I love the combination of iron & wood and my friend's love for Native American's culture inspired me to build something highly personal.
Hope this reply repairs the wounds or misunderstoods I might have created.
There's a lot of low quality Pipestone out there, harvested using power tools (jackhammers, backhoes, etc) from private non-native land near the Pipestone monument. It's mostly jasper, doesn't carve properly, and the energy is all wrong. It goes for very cheap, because it's low quality and harvested wrong.
If you want real Pipestone, get it from a real Native American and expect to pay a decent price - around 10.00 a pound -- for his hard work getting it out of the ground. Only Native Americans with proper documentation can get permits to dig the stone from the monument area where the true stone is found, and such a person would know to do it right, honoring all the proper traditions.
It's necessary to use all the proper traditions when dealing with Pipestone because it's very sacred. In fact some people prefer not to deal with it because -- and please forgive me for mixing cultural metaphors here, I know no other way to explain this -- Pipestone can accelerate one's karma.
Knowing all that I won't buy any pipestone from the net. Somehow I feel having a debt and I'm willing to prove that it's possible to make a functional calumet in the spirit a calumet should be made.
I haven't any single Native American chromosome in my body so I'll never pretend having build a 'real' one. It will never be the goal also, but everyone can do the best he can.
I'm sure it's possible to make a pipe with local sources without the use of power tools. I'll call it a 'low-ecological-footprint-pipe' for example. Produced with only hand labour, without having killed and without having paid.
We'll meet again!
Other Native nations have other ways of making Pipes, always using natural materials according to their traditions. Some use pottery, antler, etc. In every instance that People has a tradition of using that material, as well as traditional ways of building the pipe. I've even seen hardwood used, there's a certain kind of very hard wood that withstands the heat and is used by one People to make pipes.
Over on your side of the water fine pipes are made of meershaum, which is also a high quality stone rich in tradition. Also briar burl is used, which is of course a hardwood.
Briar burls I know either. More: a few months ago I digged a few of these burls out in the Pyrenees and these are drying now. Can't wait to start handling them!
Thanx for all the constructive comments, we'll keep in touch!
To the other commenters, you put up a lot of useful info (i.e. the iron might have been finished with possibly dangerous substances, etc) and informing him of possibly offensive terms. However it's important that you don't take it too far; realize that you're (specifically jonipinkney) essentially asking him to re-write his whole instructable! This guy spent a lot of time making a pipe inspired by Native Americans for a friend, and he was kind enough to post it online. While I understand you're only trying to protect your heritage, he did say he based it off a movie, and we all know what Hollywood is like ;). Perhaps it would be nice if the author put in some sort of disclaimer to avoid any further conflict.
I understood what went wrong and I've tried to correct the necessary in my Instructable.
Native American's history and culture are inspiring me almost my whole life.
So, thanx for the positive feedback! That term will be removed immediately.
There now that is out of the way your 'ible is very well documented and photographed easy to follow though the use of the glue and some of the metal used makes me hope that really and truly this is merely an ornamental piece of art rather than true use though as I've noticed you've put a lot of work into functional art :-) Good Job on the 'ible!
Thanx for the compliments, I appreciate!
I'm sure the pipe will be of decorative use all the way. I just wanted to build it though enough in case anyone would really want to turn it on. I'm planning to burn tome tobacco in it and attach the calumet on a compressor to evacuate whatever that should not have been inhaled. All glues used are fire-resistant and never they should be in direct contact with the burning chamber.