TOBACCO IN THE EAST.
In the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, vol. iii. p. 383., art. "China," it is stated that three species of tobacco have been found in India and in China, under circumstances which can leave no doubt of their being native plants.
Dr. Bigelow (American Botany, 4to., vol. ii. p. 171.) tells us that Nicot. fructicosa is said to have been cultivated in the East prior to the discovery of America. Linnæus sets down the same as a native of China and the Cape of Good Hope. Sir G. Staunton says that there is no traditional account of the introduction of tobacco into China; nor is there any account of its introduction into India[2]; though, according to Barrow, the time when the cotton plant was introduced into the southern provinces of China is noted in their annals. Bell of Antermony, who was in China in 1721, says,
"It is reported the Chinese have had the use of tobacco for many ages," &c.—Travels, vol. ii. p. 73., Lond. ed. 4to. 1763.
Ledyard says, the Tartars have smoked from remote antiquity (Travels, 326.). Du Halde speaks of tobacco as one of the natural productions of Formosa, whence it was largely imported by the Chinese (p. 173. Lond. ed. 8vo. 1741).
The prevalence of the practice of smoking at an early period among the Chinese is appealed to by Pallas as one evidence that in Asia, and especially in China, the use of tobacco for smoking is more ancient than the discovery of the New World. (See Asiat. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 137.)
The Koreans say they received tobacco from Japan, as also instructions for its cultivation, about the latter end of the sixteenth century. (Authority, I think, Hamel's Travels, Pink. Coll., vii. 532.) Loureiro states that in Cochin China tobacco is indigenous, and has its proper vernacular name.
Java is said to have possessed it before 1496. Dr. Ruschenberg says,
"We are informed the Portuguese met with it on their first visit to Java."—Voy. of U.S.S. Peacock, vol. ii. p. 456, Lond. ed. 8vo. 1838.
Crauford dates its introduction into Java, 1601, but admits that the natives had traditions of having possessed it long before. (Indian Archipelago, vol. i. pp. 104. 409, 410. 8vo.) Rumphius, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, found it universal even where the Portuguese and Spaniards had never been.
Savary, in his Parfait Négociant, states that the Persians have used tobacco 400 years, and probably received it from Egypt. (See Med. Chir. Review, 1840, p. 335.)
Olearius found it fully established in Persia, 1637, only about fifty years after its arrival in England. (Lond. 1662, in fol. p. 322.) Chardin states, the Persians smoked long before the discovery of America, and had cultivated tobacco time immemorial.
"Coffee without tobacco is meat without salt."—Persian Proverb, Sale's Koran, Preliminary Discourse, 169. ed. 8vo.
In 1634 Olearius found the Russians so addicted to tobacco that they would spend their money on it rather than bread. (See edit. above quoted, lib. iii. p. 83.)
According to Prof. Lichtenstein, the Beetjuanen smoked and snuffed long before their intercourse with Europeans. (Med. and Chir. Rev., 1840, p. 335.)
Liebault, in his Maison Rustique, asserts that he found tobacco growing naturally in the forest of Ardennes. Libavius says that it grows in the Hyrcinian forest. (Ibid.)
Dr. Cleland shows the three last to be falsehoods(?).
Ysbrants Ides found tobacco in general use among the Ostiaks and other tribes passed in his route to China, 1692. (Harris's Coll., fol. vol. ii. pp. 925. and 926.)
The story told of Amurath IV. punishing a Turk for smoking seems to be a mistake, since Amurath only began to reign 1622; whereas Sandys relates the same story of a certain Morad Bassa, probably Murat III., who began to reign 1576, and ended 1594. If this be the case, the Turks were smokers before tobacco was known in England.—In Persia smoking was prohibited by Shah Abbas. There were two princes of this name. The first began his reign 1585 A.D., died 1628: the second began 1641, died 1666. The proclamation against smoking was probably issued by the first, since (as before mentioned) in 1634 Olearius found the custom firmly established. If so, the Persians must have been early smokers. Smoking seems to have obtained at a very remote period among several nations of antiquity. Dr. Clarke quotes Plutarch on Rivers to show that the Thracians were in the habit of intoxicating themselves with smoke, which he supposes to have been tobacco. The Quarterly Review is opposed to this.
Lafitau quotes Pomp. Mela and Solin to show the same; also Herodotus and Maximin of Tyre, as evidences to the same custom prevailing amongst the Scythians, and thinks that Strabo alludes to tobacco in India. (See, for the Scythians, the Universal History.) Logan, in his Celtic Gaul, advances that smoking is of great antiquity in Britain. He says that pipes of the Celts are frequently found, especially at Brannocktown, co. Kildare, where in 1784 they were dug up in great numbers; that a skeleton dug out of an ancient barrow, actually had a pipe sticking between its teeth when found. (From Anthol. Hibern., i. 352.) Halloran says Celtic pipes are found in the Bog of Cullen. In form, these pipes were very similar to those in use at this day.
Eulia Effendi mentions having found a tobacco pipe, still in good preservation, and retaining a smell of smoke, embeded in the wall of a Grecian edifice more ancient than the birth of Mahomet. (Med. Chir. Rev. 1840, p. 335.) This Dr. Cleland proves to be a lie(?). He proves the same of Chardin, Bell of Antermony, Mr. Murray, Pallas, Rumphius, Savary, &c.
Masson describes a "chillum," or smoking apparatus, found embedded in an ancient wall in Beloochistan. (Travels, ii. 157.)
Dr. Yates saw amongst the paintings in a tomb at Thebes the representation of a smoking party. (Travels in Egypt, ii. 412.)
There is an old tradition in the Greek Church, said to be recorded in the works of the early Fathers, of the Devil making Noah drunk with tobacco, &c. (Johnson's Abyssinia, vol. ii. p. 92.)
Nanah, the prophet of the Sikhs, was born 1419. Supposing him fifty when he published his Ordinances, it would bring us to 1469, or 23 years before the discovery of America by Columbus. In these Ordinances he forbade the use of tobacco to the Sikhs; but found the habit so deeply rooted in the Hindû that he made an exception in their favour. (Masson's Beloochistan, vol. i. p. 42.) Should this be true, the Hindû must have been in the habit of smoking long before the discovery of America, to have acquired so inveterate a predilection for it.
If the prophecy attributed to Mahomet be not a fabrication of after times, it is strongly corroborative, and goes to show that he was himself acquainted with the practice of smoking, viz.
"To the latter day there shall be men who will bear the name of Moslem, but will not be really such, and they shall smoke a certain weed which shall be called tobacco."—See Sale's Koran, ed. 8vo. p. 169.
Query. Is tobacco the word in the original? If so, it is a stumbling-block.
Lieut. Burns, in his Travels, has the following curious statement:
"The city of Alore was the capital of a great empire extending from Cachemere to the sea. This was conquered by the Mahomedans in the seventh century, and in the decisive battle they are reported to have brought fire, &c., in their pipes to frighten the elephants."
Lieut. Burns conjectures that they must have smoked bang, &c., tobacco being then unknown.
Buchanan's account of the cultivation and preparation of tobacco in Mysore, carries with it a conviction that these elaborate processes were never communicated to them by Europeans, nor brought in any way from America, where they have never been practised. They strike one as peculiarly ancient and quite indigenous.
The rapid dissemination of tobacco, as also of forms and ceremonies connected with its use; its already very extensive cultivation in the remotest parts of the continent and islands of Asia, within a century of its introduction into Europe, amounts to the miraculous; and particularly when we see new habits of life, and novelties in their ceremonies of state, at once adopted and become familiar, to such otherwise unchangeable people as the orientals are known to be. Extraordinary also is the fact that the forms and ceremonies adopted should so precisely coincide (in most respects) with those in use among the American Indians, and should not be found in any of the intermediate countries through which we must suppose them to have passed. Who taught them the presentation of the pipe to guests, a form so strictly observed by the Red Men of America, &c.? But the "narghile," the "kaleoon," the "hookah," the "hubble-bubble," whence came they? They are indigenous.
Great stress is laid on the silence of Marco Polo, Rubruquis,—the two Mahomedans, Drake, Cavendish, and Pigafelta; also of the Arabian Nights, on the subject of smoking,—and with reason; but, after all, it is negative evidence: for we have examples of the same kind the other way. Sir Henry Blount, who was in Turkey in 1634, describes manners and customs very minutely without a single allusion to smoking, though we know that twenty years previously to that date the Turks were inveterate smokers. M. Adr. Balbi insists likewise on the prevalence of the Haïtian name "tambaku" being conclusive as to the introduction of tobacco from America. This, however, is not exactly the case: in many countries of the East it has vernacular names. In Ceylon it is called "dun-kol" or smoke-leaf; in China, "tharr"—Barrow says, "yen."
The Yakuti (and Tungusi?) call it "schaar." The Crim Tartars call it "tütün." The Koreans give it the name of the province of Japan whence they first received it. In the Tartar (Calmuc and Bashkir?) "gansa" is a tobacco-pipe. In America itself tobacco has many names, viz. "goia," "gozobba" or "cohobba," "petun," "y'ouly," "yoly," and "uppwoc." Are there any proofs of its growing wild in America? At the discovery it was every where found in a state of cultivation. The only mention I have met with is in Drake's Book of the Indians[3], where he says it grew spontaneously at Wingandacoa[4], and was called by the natives "uppewoc." Does not this very notice imply something unusual? and might not this have been a deserted plantation?
The Indians have always looked to Europeans for presents of tobacco, which they economise by mixing with willow-bark, the uva-ursi, &c., and there are some tribes totally unacquainted with its use. M'Kenzie says, the Chepewyans learnt smoking from Europeans, and that the Slave and Dogrib Indians did not even know the use of tobacco.
In mentioning the silence of early visitors to the East on the subject of smoking, I might have added equally the silence of the Norwegian visitors to America on the same subject.
A.C.M.
Exeter, July 25. 1850.
Footnote 2:[(return)]
There is no positive notice of its introduction into Turkey, Persia, or Russia?
Footnote 3:[(return)]
Book iv., p. 5., ed. 8vo., Boston.
Footnote 4:[(return)]
Virginia.
The tobacco-plant does not appear to be indigenous to any part of Asia. Sir John Chardin, who was in Persia about the year 1670, relates in his travels, that tobacco had been cultivated there from time immemorial. "Honest John Bell" (of Antermony), who travelled in China about 1720, asserts that it is reported the Chinese have had the use of tobacco for many ages. Rumphius, who resided at Amboyna towards the end of the seventeenth century, found it universal over the East Indies, even in countries where Spaniards or Portuguese had never been. The evidence furnished by these authors, although merely traditional, is the strongest which I am aware of in favour of an Asiatic origin for the use of tobacco.
Mr. Lane, on the other hand, speaks of the "introduction of tobacco into the East, in the beginning of the seventeenth century of our era," (Arabian Nights, Note 22. cap. iii.), "a fact that has been completely established by the researches of Dr. Meyer of Konigsberg, who discovered in the works of an old Hindostanee physician a passage in which tobacco is distinctly stated to have been introduced into India by the Frank nations in the year 1609." (Vide An Essay on Tobacco, by H.W. Cleland, M.D. 4to. Glasgow, 1840, to which I am indebted for the information embodied in this reply to Z.A.Z., and to which I would beg to refer him for much curious matter on the subject of tobacco.)
My own impression is, that the common use of hemp in the East, for intoxicating purposes, from a very early period, has been the cause of much of the misconception which prevails with regard to the supposed ante-European employment of "tobacco, divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco," in the climes of the East.
J.M.B.