Many of us have probably heard the expression "peace pipe." The meaning of the phrase is clear to many, however, hardly everyone knows where it came from. It should also be noted that the phraseology “peace pipe” has several interpretations. Everything related to him will be described in this essay.
The appearance of the expression
The pipe of the world is one of the main symbols in the culture of the Indians of North America. For the tribes that inhabited earlier and now live on this continent, pipe smoking was and has a sacred character. The phrase "light the pipe of the world" means "agree on peace." It is associated with an ancient sacred rite that occurred after the warring tribes of the Indians made peace. The leaders and their circle sat in a circle and blew a pipe in a circle. At the end of this ritual, hostility ceased.
For the Indians, the pipe was a sacred attribute in absolutely all tribes. It was believed that her smoking creates a connection with the spirits of her ancestors. That is, at the end of smoking the pipe, a truce was concluded in the physical world and in the world of spirits.
Smoking pipe
The often used name of the very pipe itself of the world among the Indians is calumet. The smoking tip of the calumet was made by one master, and during the whole process a shaman casting spells was surely present. The material was a tube stone - catlinite, which was sacred. It was mined in quarries in eastern South Dakota, in Iowa and Minnesota. These places were neutral among all the tribes, and any hostile actions in this territory were prohibited.
The eastern tribes of the Indians used mainly tobacco for smoking, but the tribes that inhabited the western part of the continent made a smoking mixture called cynicism. Some historians believe that the mixture included herbs that stupefied the Indians, but this does not find significant evidence.
It should be said that the Indians have a peace pipe, or rather, lighting it during the armistice - this is just one of the rituals. The fact is that they had tubes, as they say, for all occasions. Namely, there were tubes for war, trade, and, oddly enough, it sounds, for making political decisions. In other words, after concluding a treaty, deciding on a war or peace, a certain pipe lit up. Calumets differed in form and style, and different mixtures were also used.
Other meaning
The kimberlite pipe “Mir” is the name of a diamond deposit located in Yakutia. It was discovered in 1954 by Soviet geologists in the USSR. They began to develop the deposit by a simple open method, however, as the prospectors deepened the quarry, development began to be carried out underground.
The kimberlite pipe Mir is the largest diamond quarry in terms of volume. Initially, the quarry itself was developed, and then around it appeared the city of Mirny, in which about 40 thousand people live today.
This field has now gone 525 meters deep; its diameter reaches 1.2 kilometers. Kimberlite rock appears as a result of a volcanic eruption that occurred in these places millions of years ago. In the process of eruption, kimberlite is thrown from the bowels of the earth, which contains diamonds.
Diamond mining
The Mir pipe located in Yakutia has not only impressive dimensions, but also brings impressive revenues. So, over the entire development period of this deposit, diamonds worth more than 17 billion US dollars have been mined. The quarry has stretched so far that the spiral road, which leads to a depth where the rock is mined, has a length of as much as eight kilometers. According to geological exploration, it will still be possible to mine diamonds at this deposit within 35 years.
An interesting fact is that helicopters are strictly forbidden to fly over the Mir kimberlite pipe. This is due to the fact that the giant funnel formed as a result of the extraction of the rock simply draws in the helicopters flying over it due to the formation of powerful vortex flows.
The Mir pipe looks very impressive, it is amazing what a person is capable of setting a task and solving it. For the entire time the quarry has been operating, billions cubic meters of rock have been taken out of here, and all in order to find small diamonds that are measured in carats, which seems very ironic.