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 MODERN CAHOKIA POINTS & PIPES
Kaolin chert Cahokia point made by Gary Merlie.
BY GARY MERLIE
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Hopewell Platform pipe made by Gary Merlie.
PICTURE BY GARY MERLIE
HOPEWELL PLATFORM PIPE MADE BY GARY MERLIE
KYLE WILSON COLLECTION

   This pipe was made by Gary Merlie in the style of a Middle Woodland Hopewell Platform pipe. It was made from green pipestone from southern Illinois.

    Over the past 17 years Gary has made hundreds of Cahokia points points. His says that "I estimate that I have made well over a thousand Cahokia points, and probably half of these were colorful heated Kaolin".

Hopewell Platform pipe made by Gary Merlie.
PICTURE BY GARY MERLIE
HOPEWELL PLATFORM PIPE MADE BY GARY MERLIE
GARY MERLIE COLLECTION

   This pipe was made by Gary Merlie in the style of a Middle Woodland Hopewell Platform pipe. It was made from a piece of red and green pipestone from southern Illinois.

   As you can see in the pictures, Gary is also making some very nice pipes. So far he's made a variety of Hopewell and the much later "T" shaped style pipes.

Close-up of pipe bowl showing fossils in the stone.
PICTURE BY GARY MERLIE
CLOSE-UP VIEW OF FOSSILS IN THE STONE
PIPE MADE BY GARY MERLIE
KYLE WILSON COLLECTION

   Some of the pipestone Gary has collected from Alexander County, Illinois has fossil inclusions in it. He says they are fossilized thread worms.

   There is an on going study right now by Dr. Thomas E. Emerson and Randall E. Huges of the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana and the Illinois State Geological Survey to identify the sources of pipestone, flint clay or fire clay in Illinois and Missouri. They are trying to find the ancient sources that were used to make the Mississippian pipes used at Cahokia and Spiro. Some of these southern Illinois sources have yet to be recorded.

Chunks of raw pipestone from southern Illinois.
PICTURE BY GARY MERLIE
RAW PIPESTONE FROM SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
COLLECTED BY GARY MERLIE

   This pipestone from Alexander County in southern Illinois isn't very pretty until it's cut and polished. Then it looks as nice as any that can be found in this area of the U.S.

   Gary Merlie is continuing an ancient stone working craft that has continued unbroken in time for countless millennia. Without people like him there might come a time when no one would remember how to shape the stone like our ancestors once did long ago.

"REFERENCES"

2002, Personal communications with Gary Merlie.

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