Visiting Pipestone

My travels took me to Pipestone this week, and I was deeply grateful.

 

I had never before visited the national monument located there. The extent of my knowledge was that a special type of stone is found there that is the preferred raw material for “peace” pipes made by Native Americans across history.

 

I left myself only a little more than an hour to walk through the visitor center. There is an outdoor trail that takes a person past the quarries and through some of the natural prairie, but the day was too cold and windy for that to be appealing. Inside the center, there are many photos, illustrations, videos and even a whole simulated wall that shows how the rust-red catlinite stone is in a vein under much harder limestone. A video includes footage demonstrating the steps needed when using hand tools to expose the catlinite.

 

Even today, only manual methods are allowed in the quarry. Along with that, only persons of Native American heritage are permitted to work there.

 

The best part of my visit was a conversation with Mark Pederson, a member of a local Native American family who occupies a work station inside the visitor center. He crafts demonstration items and answers people’s questions. Relatives of his also serve as demonstrators, but on a Thursday afternoon only an hour or so before closing, I was one of very few visitors, and he was the only person at a station. We talked for a half hour or more.

 

Thanks to our exchange, I learned catlinite is very soft compared to other types of stone–one display claimed it is the world’s “second-softest.” It also revealed that signs of quarrying at Pipestone can be dated back tens of thousands of years.

 

Mark made a point of showing me a “drill” used before metal tools became available. A sharpened piece of dark-colored rock was tied at the bottom of a stick about a foot long. A pair of leather straps led to a horizontal “handle” which caused the leather to wrap around the stick first in one direction and then in the opposite one. As the handle moved up and down, the point would spin, changing directions as the straps wound and unwound, but always in motion–always grinding away at the catlinite below.

 

I was impressed with the ingenuity, craftsmanship and stamina it must have taken to make and use tools like that one.

 

Other elements at the visitor center made it clear the special rock is not the only way Native Americans used the area at Pipestone. A wide variety of native plants with medicinal properties grows there. Some of the plants were also used in mixtures to be burned in the pipes; elements of the display explained different plants were also regarded as having specific significance, for example, in hopes of bringing health or plenty or harmonious relationships.

 

As I said, I am grateful to have been there and to have widened my understanding of the place and the people who venerate it. Considering other people’s perspectives is one important way to reach a stronger understanding of our own view of the world.