Sacred pipe

Howard Terpning - "Crow Pipe Ceremony"

The 'Sacred pipe' is symbolic of the body and the spine.  The hole down the pipe is the channel through which the smoke [the energy] flows.  The resulting smoke enters your head as does the kundalini energy going from the base of the body – base of the pipe, to the top  - the mouthpiece. 

The pipe is shaped so that the 'bowl' , which isn't a bowl,  represents the sexual organs – the penis and the balls.  It is sacred because it is the key symbol of kundalini experience and thus the merge with the Higher spirit.  Anything that involved 'the Sacred Pipe' was thus symbolically the means to enlightenment. 

And ball games were not ball games, at least not the sorts of balls you might think of.

Note that the pipe was always held upright and stored upright with its base down and its mouthpiece towards the heavens, symbolically ensuring that the symbolic man was always ready for spiritual experience.

[An aside; just speculation but I did wonder whether the Native Americans were enjoying a huge joke when they asked the invading forces to smoke a peace pipe with them - a sort of 'kiss my balls' - maybe I'm wrong, there again maybe I'm not ....]

Observations

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• Black Elk - Native American Indians - Blue route, Red route
• David Lewis-Williams - Native American Indians - Flying
• David Lewis-Williams - Native American Indians - Sex
• Frances Densmore - Teton Sioux ceremony
• Gentling the Bull – 06 Returning home on the back of the Bull
• Lame Deer - Native American Indians - Clowns
• Leonard Crow Dog - Native American Indians - The Vision pit
• Native American Wisdom - Oglala star whisper
• Old King Cole
• Osage - Native American Indians - Sacred pipe
• Reichel-Dolmatoff – Amazonian Cosmos - Humming and buzzing
• Sheridan, Clare – Big Eagle’s Sacred Pipe