Bird Effigy Pipe, Late Woodlands period (1600-1100 years before present), Steatite, 7.75 x 2 inches, Gift of Warren Whittle, 1962.19.2.
Native American smoking pipes often took the form of effigies, or representations of people or animals. This pipe may have originated at Zimmerman’s Island, a site believed by many archaeologists to have once held an important prehistoric village. Now submerged by Douglas Lake, the island underwent TVA-sponsored surveying and excavations in the early 1940s.