This pipe tomahawk was donated to the Kansas Historical Society in 1968. Pipe tomahawks are unique to North America, generally created as a trade item in the 17th through 18th centuries and as reproductions today. According to the donor, this pipe tomahawk was manufactured in France in the early 1700s, traded to the Shoshone tribe, then traded to the Sac and Fox tribe, and then purchased in the early 1800s by the donor's grandfather, a trader in Clark County, Kansas. However, this style of pipe tomahawk was generally made in the 1830s and 1840s. This pipe tomahawk has a patterned wooden handle shaped to form the stem of the pipe. Two round pewter or lead inlays near a smoothed knot hole give the impression of an effigy pipe, possibly a long necked animal such as a goose. The lug (which makes the eye portion of the bit) decorated with a "V" on each side above three lines on the cheek of the bit. The handle/pipe stem in the eye of the axe has had a conifer plug added to perhaps tighten the wood in the eye. The pipe is 16 1/2" long and the cutting edge of the bit is 2 3/8" long.

Date: 1830-1850