Smoking was an important ritual as well as something done for pleasure. A man's pipe was one of his most favoured and treasured possessions. The pipe would usually be made of ashwood, a straight piece as long as a man's forearm. This was split in half, hollowed out and bound back together again. The mouthpiece would be wrapped in rawhide which was allowed to dry and shrink until it became as hard as wood. The bowl would be made from red pipestone, shaped and polished and given a final rubbing with buffalo tallow to seal the porous stone. The pipe would be decorated with the owners personal symbols, feathers or furs from the owners personal spirit helper, strips of buffalo hide and horse hair.
   Particularly ceremonial pipes would always be adorned with four strips of buffalo hide dyed red, black, white and yellow, the colours of the four directions. Near the mouthpiece would be four braided strands of horsehair, again in the four sacred colours. Sometimes a strip of red paint ran from the bowl to the mouthpiece, symbolising the good red road of spiritual understanding that was sought by all who smoked the pipe. Around the stem of the pipe was a small circle of black to represent the world of worldly cares. Where the black crossed the red was a spot of green representing the tree of life.
   Where men met together a pipe would always be smoked formally before any talk took place. The smoking of the pipe was a ritual which bound all who partook of the pipe to telling the truth and keeping his word on anything said. The pipe would be offered by the host to the four directions, the earth and the sky. He would then pass it to the man on his left who smoked and passed it on to the man on his left and so on. It always went to the left as this was the direction the sun took or its journey around the world. The pipe would be filled with a mixture of dried willow bark, tobacco, grasses and herbs. If the mixture was finished before the pipe had gone full circle the pipe would be tapped and cleaned, the ashes emptied into the fire. Upon refilling the pipe, it would again be offered as before, then it would continue it's way around the circle as before. The smoke from the pipe was believed to carry the words of man upwards to the Great Spirit and all men who smoked the pipe were united spiritually.
   After the formal smoking of the pipe the talk would begin and each man would then light his own pipe and smoke through the conversation. Pipes were usually long but if a man had suffered some fall from grace or shame then he was expected to smoke a short stemmed pipe. One way to greatly insult a man was to clean out your pipe and empty the ashes over his moccasins.