The tobacco plant notwithstanding its fascinating powers, has suffered many romantic vicissitudes in its fame and character; having been successively opposed and commended by physicians, condemned and eulogized by priests, vilified and venerated by kings, and alternately proscribed and protected by governments, this once insignificant production of a little island or an obscure district, has succeeded in diffusing itself throughout every clime, and—exhilarating and enriching its thousands—has subjected the inhabitants of every country to its dominion. And every where it is a source of comfort and enjoyment; in the highest grades of civilized society, at the shrine of fashion, in the depths of poverty, in the palace and in the cottage, the fascinating influence of this singular plant demands an equal tribute of devotion and attachment.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER VI.
TOBACCO-PIPES, SMOKING AND SMOKERS.
The implements used in smoking tobacco, from the rude pipe of the Indian to the elaborate hookah of the Turk, show a far greater variety than even the various species of the tobacco plant. The instruments used by the Indians for inhaling the tobacco smoke were no less wonderful to Europeans than the plant itself.
The rude mode of inhaling the smoke and the intoxication produced by its fumes suggested to the Spaniards a better method of "taking tobacco." Hariot, however, found clay pipes in use by the Indians of Virginia, which though having no resemblance to the smoking implements discovered by Columbus, seem to have afforded a model for those afterward manufactured by the Virginia colony. The sailors of Columbus seemed to have first discovered cigar, rather than pipe-smoking, inasmuch as the simple method used by the natives, consisted of a leaf of maize, which enwrapped a few leaves of the plant.
The next instruments discovered in use among the Indians were straight, hollow reeds and forked canes. Their mode of use was to place a few leaves upon coals of fire and by placing the forked end in the nostrils and the other upon the smoking leaves, to inhale the smoke until they were stupified or drunken with the fumes. Their object in inhaling the fumes of tobacco seemed to be to produce intoxication and insensibility rather than a mode of enjoyment, although the enjoyment with them consisted of seeing the most remarkable visions when stupefied by its fumes. Such were the modes of smoking among the Indians when Columbus planted the banner of Spain in America.
A writer in The Tobacco Plant has given a very interesting description of Indian pipes in use among the natives of both North and South America. He says:
"In the tumuli or Indian grave mounds of the Ohio and Scioto valleys, large quantities of pipes have been found, bearing traces of Indian ingenuity. That their burial mounds are of great antiquity, is proved by the fact that trees several centuries old are to be found growing upon them. About twenty-five years ago, two distinguished archeologists Squier and Davis—made extensive exploration of these mounds, the results of which were published in an elaborate memoir by the Smithsonian Institution. The mounds indicate that an immense amount of labor has been expended upon them, as the earthworks and mounds may be counted by thousands, requiring either long time or an immense population; and there is much probability in the supposition of Sir John Lubbock that these parts of America were once inhabited by a numerous and agricultural population. It may be asked, have the races who erected these extensive mounds become extinct, or do they exist in the poor uncivilized tribes of Indians whom Europeans found inhabiting the river valleys of Ohio and Illinois? Many of these mounds are in the form of serpents and symbolic figures, and were evidently related to the sacrificial worship of the mound builders."
Squier and Davis are of the opinion that:—