Minnesota Pipestone (Catlinite) Tumble Stone

Pipestone is traditionally the sacred red clay stone used as a Native American ceremony stone for making peace pipes, prayer and ceremonial pipes and other totems and talismans.

It is only found in a few places around the world with the best quality pipestone coming from South Western Minnesota. The clay itself is smooth to the touch and can be easily carved. It also polishes up very nicely.

These lovely tumble stones are broadly speaking a deep red/orange colour, maybe chestnut or henna, but in some stones you can see where the layers of clay have built up and cream coloured lines are visible. Other stones have an occasional cream coloured dot where the natural colour of the clay was not 100% red. These are all natural markings and some pipes, totems and talismans use these features as decorative interest.

In 1836 a famous American artist, George Catlin - after whom Catlinite is named - wrote down and recorded the Sioux legend about the origin of pipestone, as follows -

"At an ancient time the Great Spirit, in the form of a large bird, stood upon the wall of rock and called all the tribes around him. Taking out a piece of the red stone, he formed it into a pipe and smoked it, the smoke rolling over the whole multitude. He then told his red children that this red stone was their flesh, that they were made from it, that they must all smoke to him through it, that they must use it for nothing but pipes: and as it belonged alike to all the tribes, the ground was sacred, and no weapons must be used or brought upon it."

Physical

Minnesota Pipestone, or Catlinite, has been sacred to the Native Americans for thousands of years and still is today. As such it must be treated with due deference and respect. Physically, it is thought to be beneficial to the lungs in particular, but as it carries the power of the Great Spirit, it helps with all healing. It shows us that the physical and the spiritual cannot be separated.

Mental/Emotional

Pipestone, although primarily a spiritual stone, can offer us assistance when we need to sort things out or get to the bottom of things.

Spiritual

Pipestone helps us to realise that the spiritual and the physical are interconnected and that prayer and ritual can be incorporated into everyday life. We can see that everything is sacred and no one thing can be set apart from everything else. This connection between our spiritual life and our physical life is profound. Pipestone is also an excellent stone for meditation and can bring us deep inner peace. Pipestone is extremely useful for healing areas of discord where perhaps in the past there may have been much harm and abuse done to both people and to animals. Pipestone helps us to reconnect to the wisdom of the Native Americans and may also help us to discover and search for our own ancestral line. Pipestone is a manifestation stone and one that not only strengthens the manifestation process but one that may bring us far more than we expect it to.