Calumet
Calumet names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Calumet the pipe of peace used by the Indians of North America
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the pipe of peace used by the Indians of North America . The bowl was made of some sort of soapstone, or of red pipestone. A long reed served for a stem. On all ceremonial occasions the calumet was passed from hand to hand. When met to make a treaty, the warriors sat in a circle. The pipe was passed around gravely; each warrior took a few whiffs as a sign of friendship. When the terms of the treaty had been arranged the pipe went around from hand to hand again. Each warrior or chieftain took a whiff or two to indicate his agreement to the terms. If he passed the pipe without smoking he declared his dissent. In this way a vote was taken. The calumet was also passed around the circle as a token that warriors going out to battle would stand or fall together. See Pipestone Break the red stone from this quarry, Mould and make it into Peace-Pipes, Take' the reeds that grow beside you, Deck them with your brightest feathers, Smoke the calumet together, And as brothers live henceforward! --Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a kind of pipe for smoking, used by the North American Indians. The bowl is generally of stone, and the stem is ornamented with features, etc. The calumet is the emblem of peace and hospitality. To refuse the offer of it is to make a proclamation of enmity or war, and to accept it is a sign of peace and friendship.
Calumet a town in Houghton co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a town in Houghton co., Mich.; on the Mineral Range and other railroads; 42 miles N. L'Anse. It is the seat of the famous Calumet and Hecla copper mine. It is the trade and supply center of the Superior mining district, and has a National bank, several weekly newspapers, manufactories, etc. Pop. (1910) 32,345; (1920) 22,369.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote in 1921 that Calumet, Michigan, was "the seat of the famous Calumet and Hecla copper mine" and the supply centre of the Superior mining district, the decline was already showing in its own figures: 32,345 people in 1910, 22,369 in 1920. The Calumet and Hecla company was absorbed by Universal Oil Products in 1968 and the mines shut for good after a strike that year; the village today counts only a few hundred residents, and since 1992 has been a centre of the Keweenaw National Historical Park, which preserves the mine buildings as heritage. The pipe entries still describe the object accurately, though the red pipestone quarries of southwestern Minnesota that Aiton's cites through Longfellow became Pipestone National Monument in 1937, where quarrying is reserved by law to enrolled members of Native American tribes. Scholars now stress that "peace pipe" is a European shorthand: the calumet ceremony was used for adoption, trade and kinship-making as much as for treaty-signing, and such pipes remain in ceremonial use today rather than being relics of a vanished practice.
Written for this edition, 2026.