Longfellow wrote "The Song of Hiawatha" in which there is a section called "The Peace Pipe" about the red pipestone quarry in Pipestone, MN.

On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,
Gitche Manito, the mighty
He the Masterof Life, descending,
On the red crags of the quarry
Stood erect, and called the nations,
Called the tribesof men together.

From his footprints flowed a river,
Leaped into the light of morning,
O'er the precipice plunging downward
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.
And the Spirit, stooping earthward,
With his finger on the meadow
Traced a winding pathway for it,
Saying to it, "Run in this way!"

From the red stone of the quarry
With his hand he broke a fragment,
Moulded it into a pipe-head,
Sharped and fashioned it with figures;
From the margin of the river
Took a long reed for a pipe-stem,
With its dark green leaves upon it;
Filled the pipe with bark of willow,
With the bark of the red willow;
Breathed upon the neighboring forest,
Made it great boughs chafe together,
Till in flame they chafed and kindled;
And erect upon the mountains,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,

Of course, the poem continues, but the point was made about the red pipe-stone. Three Maidens were the three large fifty foot stones that lie just outside the sacred grounds of the Quarry. When the Native people came to dig the red pipestone, they had to leave all of their weapons of war at the Three Maidens and continue to the Quarry in peace and harmony.

The myth surrounding the red pipestone goes like this. A long time ago many warring tribes came together at this site and much blood was spelled. There was so much blood that it seeped into the ground and turned the stone red. The Native people realized that fighting was not good and declared the site to be sacred because of the blood stained stone that would always remind them that war was a waste. Today only Federally registered tribal members are allowed permits to hand extract the red stone still used in peace pipes today.

I will purchase a pipestone block and carve my own pipestone pipe. We have a book by Eagle Man who talks about a white lady came to one of his sweat lodge ceremonies and had a vision of a peace pipe. She carved it and uses it in the Sacred Pipe Ceremony. The stone is soft and I look forward to carving it into a finished shape. I wanted the experience of working with this sacred red stone that I have heard so much about. To the Native peoples, we are the Rainbow People, meaning we are not red, but all other colors of the rainbow.

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