This is a excellent late-19th-century pipe tomahawk attributed to the Shawnee Native American Indians of Kentucky. The piece is from a large collection of frontier weapons and accouterments and shows an attractive example with cast iron head. The pipe bowl is octagon shaped and the head is secured to the haft with an old buckskin hide gasket and brass tacks. The head has two unusual, small flat iron plates welded or forged onto the fore end of the head. Both are crudely punch stamped, the first with a date of 1860 and the other stamped “WOOD”. There was a documented mid-19th-century English blacksmith named Benjamin Wood, who worked out of the Cincinnati, Ohio area and forged tomahawks, knives, horseshoes, and other iron wares on the Ohio / Kentucky / Southern Indiana frontier. He is documented as an entry by Hartzler & Knowles book “Indian Tomahawks & Frontiersmen Belt Axes” is included in the photo gallery. The head appears to have been cleaned at some point in time and exhibits only mild corrosion and oxidation. The hardwood haft handle is elaborately decorated with brass tacks and some minor expected wear, dings, nicks and scratches. There is an old human teeth drop with old hand rolled tin cone danglers with trade beads attached to the bottom of the gripping area. This drop adornment was common with the Central Plains Pawnee Tribe in Kansas and Nebraska; who would often fight viciously. The Shawnee tribe in Kentucky and Indiana are the only known Eastern Woodlands tribe to have also practiced the used of teeth drops. The smoking tip appears to be an old bullet cartridge pounded into the haft. Total length of the tomahawk without drop is 21 inches. The head measures 8-inches long by 2 ½ inches wide across the bottom of the blade. Provenance: From the ex-Tom Hardy collection Indianapolis, Indiana.