Symbolic Pipestone Meaning

http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/pipestone/rock.htm

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American Indian History and Legends of the Red Earth: The value of pipestone and Sioux quartzite was immense to the first inhabitants of North America. The Sioux were the American Indians dwelling near the Pipestone region when the Europeans first explored the area. The name "Sioux" is a French corruption of the Ojibwa term nadowe-is-iw, meaning "adder" or "enemy." Historically, the Sioux and the Ojibwa peoples came into conflict in northern Minnesota, when the Ojibwa expanded into a region being left vacant by westward migrating Sioux. One of the names the Sioux referred to themselves as was dak-kota ("alliance of friends"), which became anglicized to "Dakota" and "Lakota." "Dakota" refers to the eastern Santee and Yankton Sioux, while "Lakota" refers to the western Teton Sioux. The Sioux originated from the earlier Siouan population, which is thought to have occupied the lower Ohio and middle Mississippi valleys. The ancestral Dakota migrated northward and settled in parts of Wisconsin and most of northern Minnesota by the 16th and 17th centuries. The Yankton Dakota were those who had closest access to the valuable pipestone and Sioux quartzite deposits. These sites are held sacred by American Indians, and their cultural importance was recognized far beyond Dakota territory.

Chief Standing Bear wrote the following account of the long stemmed pipe's significance to the Lakota Tribe in Land of the Spotted Eagle, published in 1933 in the book Land of the Spotted Eagle: "All the meanings of moral duty, ethics, religious and spiritual conceptions were symbolized in the pipe. It signified brotherhood, peace, and the perfection of Wakan Tanka, and to the Lakota the pipe stood for that which the Bible, church, state, and flag, all combined, represented to the mind of the white man."