This is an outstanding and rare circa 1830-1850 pipe tomahawk attributed to the Cherokee Native American Indians of the Black Mountain region of North Carolina. Provenance: Collected from a large Virginia collection of frontier weapons and accouterments and was original collected from a Cherokee family in the 1960’s. The historic-period scarce Cherokee artifact tomahawk features a hand-forged head with artful file work and punch dot presentation decoration. This pattern of head is known and documented in several tomahawk books such as Hartzler & Knowles tomahawk book showing a very similar example attributed to a Woodlands Mohawk Chief, a picture of Figure 104 from the piece is shown. The head shows a classic early to mid-1800’s pattern slightly inward turned crescent axe blade with notched spur having a fantastic punch dot engraving and prominent heavy chevron on the eyelet hole and wide high bowl with a ring on top and ring below with tapering neck. The blade pattern and bowl are nearly identical to the Hartzler & Knowles early documented example. The head is secured to the haft with an old leather gasket and old brass trade tacks at the eyelet hole. The piece appears to have been cleaned, likely in the 1960’s when originally collected, which exposed its truly artistic and beautiful high-quality craftsmanship. The clean out hole is visible, and the plug is long missing. The hardwood haft is made of tiger strip maple wood and is adorned with old brass trade tacks. Nearly all early Eastern Woodland tomahawk handles and fancy presentation grade rifles were made with tiger stripe maple wood, which was commonly found in the Eastern U.S. woodlands themselves, a sign of its authentic nature. The wood haft has signs of old hot file brandings and the entire tomahawk has a nice deep chocolate patina with mellow dark patina along the brass in overall excellent well preserved condition for its early authentic age. The bottom of the haft has a pierced hole holding a later added drop of two old feathers drop with a few old tarnished brass trade beads and hide lacing (the feather are confirmed to not be from a bird of prey). The head is 8”L by 2.25”W across the blade.