With communities on both sides of the Bering Strait, Siberian Yupik people have long been the middlemen through which trade goods and customs flowed between the Asian and North American continents. One example of this movement is the cast lead and wood tobacco pipe that was historically found in Yupik and Yup'ik communities across Western Alaska. The overall shape of these pipes was based on Chinese opium pipes that would have traded from East Asia, up into Siberia, and across to Alaska via the Chukchi and other Siberian peoples. In Alaska, the pipes were used for smoking tobacco.

This pipe is a classic form, with a horn shaped wood body and flared bowl. The mouthpiece is ivory or bone, presenting the user with an inert material for smoking. Unlike most Siberian Yupik pipes with cast lead bowls, this example instead has a carved stone bowl.

CWS