We know that two thousand years ago only select members of the community were buried in the mounds, and that many of these people must have played a part in rituals, because fragments of ceremonial costumes have been found with the bodies - headdresses made from bear, wolf and deer skulls. The animal world appears to have had a central role in the spiritual life of these people, and perhaps the animals on the pipes had a role in some kind of shamanic ritual that would connect the physical and the spiritual worlds. The tobacco smoked at the time was 'Nicotiana Rustica', and we know that it produces a heightened state of awareness, and even has a hallucinogenic effect. Our otter pipe is just one of a whole pipe menagerie: there are bowls which are shaped as wild cats, turtles, toads, squirrels, birds, fishes and even birds eating fishes. And given that you would be eyeball-to-eyeball with the creature sculpted on it, we can imagine the smoker entering into a kind of transcendent state in which the animal would come to life. Perhaps each animal served as spirit guide or totem to the person smoking; certainly for later Native American peoples, it's known that they might dream of an animal whose spirit would then protect them throughout their life. Here's Gabrielle Tayac again: