====== Pipestone ======
<div #singlebox>
---- dataentry gem----
latin_names: 
folk_names: Inyan-sha (Sioux: Inyan, "rock"; sha, "red")
energy_tags: Projective
gender_tags: 
planet_tags: Mars, Sun
element_tags: Fire
deity_tags: 
effect_tags: 
----
</div>
<ifauth @user>
===== Magical Uses =====
If you are fortunate enough to obtain pipestone, regard it as a sacred object. It is only right to respect the ways of the Sioux and Omaha. A piece of pipestone can be placed in medicine or power bags or on the altar during rituals.

The stone can also be placed on the altar during peace rituals.

I would never dare to wear the sacred pipestone.
===== Ritual Lore =====
Pipestone, for centuries, has been used by the Sioux and Omaha in rite and magic.

This is a curious, circular stone, brick red with a natural hole piercing it. Because of its color, it is sacred. (Red is the color of blood and, therefore, of life.)

To the Sioux, the pipestone is related to the north. Red is the color of that direction. Both are symbolic of the earth and the blood of its children-people.

*A Sioux legend:* A huge flood innundated the prairies. A few people managed to escape by climbing a hill but the flood drowned them. The hill collapsed among the people, crushing them and forming a pool of blood.

The pipestone is the solidified remnants of that pool, and it is found in only one place in the world, in Minnesota. This substance not only symbolizes the Sioux people, it is them. Pipestone was and is still used to make sacred pipes, in which kinnickkinnick (red willow bark) is smoked during rituals.</ifauth>
===== Notes =====
==== Related Herbs ====
* [[herb:red_willow]]