Nicole - Your point is well taken. My point really is that pipes in some cultures are folk instruments made by folk, but not here. Well, I used Appalachia to make my point, (and they did make fiddles and banjos - probably simpler than making pipes) but let's expand it to those not as desperately poor, then. Why they were made by farmers with a chicken coop in some Eastern European cultures and not by farmers with a chicken coop here? In either case, it's still a good question - why didn't the pipes take hold here among folk through the folk process as they did elsewhere among folk through the folk process?

...and I still don't have an answer!