The early writers on the smoking habit were perplexed about the origin of the name given to the weed. Many favoured the opinion that the plant and its use had first come under the observation of Europeans in the island of Tobago. This notion is shewn to be incorrect in a work bearing the rather long and ambitious title of Tobago: a Geographical Description, Natural and Civil History, together with a full Representation of the Produce and other Advantages arising from the Fertility, excellent Harbours, and Happy Situation of that Famous Island. The author says, ‘I do not recollect any author who has given a clear account of this name; and as many have expressed a doubt whether the island was so called from the herb, or the herb from the island, I hope the curious and inquisitive reader will be well pleased to see that matter set in its true light; for the fact is that neither the island received its name from the herb, nor the herb from the island. The appellation is, indeed, Indian, and yet was bestowed by the Spaniards. The thing happened thus: the Caribbees were extremely fond of tobacco, which in their language they called kohiha, and fancied when they were drunk with the fumes of it the dreams they had were in some sort inspired. Now their method of taking it was this: they first made a fire of wood, and when it was burnt out they scattered upon the living embers the leaves of the plant, and received the smoke of it by the help of an instrument that was hollow, made exactly in the shape of the letter Y, putting the larger tube into the smoke, and thrusting the shorter tubes up their nostrils. This instrument they called tabago, and when the Admiral Christopher Columbus passed to the southward of this island he judged the form of it to resemble that instrument, and thence it received its name.’
Among the continental tribes, however, smoking instruments were found which, in variety of form, originality of design, and skilful execution, equal the best productions of Europe; indeed, they have to the present day served as models for the rest of the world. Those who, inspired by Cooper born-ideals of the noble savage in his native wilds, long for a sight of real Indian life, unspoiled by contact with civilised man, will now look in vain across the American continent. The Indian, to his sorrow, soon learnt the vices of the white man who, by craft and arms, ousted him from his heritage. Occasionally, however, far up the Mississippi valley, or on the confines of the Canadian forests, the desire may, to some extent, be appeased. The observer may with admiration note the fine physique, the strongly marked physiognomy, the untrammelled freedom of these primitive lords of the land. Old chiefs may be seen gravely smoking by their wigwams, while reclining against the trunk of a fallen tree and discussing among themselves the prospects of war or peace, or perhaps congratulating themselves on the accession to their numbers of some neighbouring tribe. A little way off young warriors are furbishing up arms for the chase, or war as may be. Others are elaborately ornamenting with carving and paint their curious tobacco pipes, some of wood with long stems adorned with feathers, some cut out from the treasured red pipe-stone brought from the mountain quarry. Economy of the precious weed is not overlooked, and the inner bark of the red willow is peeled into fine shavings and when dried over a low fire is mixed with the tobacco leaves. Their tobacco pouches well filled they may start on the chase or the war path, assured that they are well provided with refreshment for many days.
Europe, however, is indebted to Oviedo for the most intelligent account of the tobacco plant, and the method commonly adopted by the Caribs of preparing and using it. During his tenure of office in the West Indies he collected an immense amount of information relating to the inhabitants, their country and its products, the results of which he published in 1526, under the title of Historia natural y general de las Indias. In the Seville edition of 1535 is an engraving of the smoking instrument used by the Caribs. It is of the form already described. Oviedo says of it that ‘it is about a span long; when used the forked ends are inserted in the nostrils, the other end being applied to the burning leaves of the herb. In this manner they inhale the smoke until they become stupefied. And when forked canes cannot be procured, they make use of a straight reed or hollow cane, and this implement is called tabaco by the Indians.’ Oviedo speaks disparagingly of the smoking habit, and classes it amongst their evil customs as a thing very pernicious, and done in order to produce insensibility. Remarking on the prevalence of the habit, he says that the consumption of tobacco by the various tribes of the Indians is of universal and immemorial usage, in many cases bound up with the most significant and solemn tribal ceremonies. No matters of importance to the tribe or the family can be conducted, no compact can be held binding, that has not been ratified by the passage of the great pipe, be it the pipe of peace or the pipe of war—the calumet or the tomahawk—from the lips of one chief to those of the others of the conference. The pipe, then, is their great seal, the solemn pledge of friendship, good faith, and such qualities as the chivalry of the forest suggests to the untutored mind. Although Oviedo regards unfavourably the practice of smoking, he evidently prized the plant, as we read that on his return home he cultivated it in his private gardens. This is but one step removed from its enjoyment in the pipe, and who can say that in his retirement he did not take that step? Las Casas speaks so slightingly of his work as to say that it contains almost as many lies as pages. Las Casas, the renowned friend and protector of the poor oppressed Indians, could certainly speak with confidence on matters relating to the West India Islands. He had gone to the colony in the train of Nicolas de Ovando in 1502, and settled in Cuba as parish priest and vicar-apostolic of the islands. Possibly his intimate knowledge of the cruelties practised by his countrymen on the unoffending natives and their insatiable greed of gold, had turned him against all highly-placed officials in the colonies. He agrees with Oviedo, however, in dislike of tobacco-smoking. He says: ‘I cannot see what benefit can be derived from it.… However extensive it may be in other countries (and common no doubt it is there) the habit has become so general in this [Spain] that, to the discredit of parents, it is even followed by children.… The eternal cigar is seen in the mouths of old and young, even in that of the ragged urchin.’
The third voyage of Columbus to the Far West, resulting in the discovery of the South American continent, brought the Spaniards into contact with new races well advanced in the arts of civilisation as compared with the condition of the inhabitants of the islands, and opened the way for intercourse and the development of mutual interests of no common order. What use they made of this brilliant opening, leading to the conquest of Mexico and Peru, is told in the fascinating pages of Prescott. Well might the eyes of the Spaniards be dazzled by the splendours they beheld in the palace of the great Montezume, where, on the occasion of their reception by the Emperor, cigars were handed to the guests inserted in tubes of richly-carved gold, tortoise-shell, or silver; or they imbibed the soothing pleasures of the ‘intoxicating weed called tobacco mingled with liquid amber.’ And while thus engaged a troop of almost phantom-like tumblers and jugglers gaily disported themselves before their wondering eyes. The after-dinner smoke, so dear to middle age, is a vestige of that civilisation which, before the onward march of the Spaniards, vanished like the mist of the morning. Our excellent guide through these realms of a shadowy past relates how the Aztecs would smoke after dinner to prepare for the siesta with as much regularity as an old Castilian does now. When dinner was over they rinsed the mouth with scented water, and an officer of the Court would then with much ceremony hand to the king his pipe. They smoked out of pipes made of polished and richly-gilt wood, inhaling the fragrant fumes of tobacco mixed with other aromatic herbs.
Girolamo Benzoni of Milan took a strong dislike to the Indian weed, and saw in it only a noxious plant whose fumes poisoned the pure breath of heaven. Like every European who visited the newly discovered countries of the West, he had his attention drawn to the herb the Indians loved, and in his History of the New World through some portion of which he travelled in 1642-45, he describes the tobacco plant as growing in ‘bushes, not very large, like reeds, that produce a leaf in shape like that of a walnut, though rather larger.’ He says it is greatly esteemed by the natives and the slaves whom the Spaniards have brought from Ethiopia. He then describes the method of preparing it for smoking, which corresponds pretty nearly with the process in operation at the present day in America, and tells us that ‘when the leaves are in season they pick them, tie them up in bundles, and suspend them near their fireplaces till they are very dry; and when they wish to use them, they take a leaf of their grain (maize) and putting one of the others into it they roll them round tightly together; then they set fire to one end, and putting the other end into the mouth they draw their breath up through it, wherefore the smoke goes into the mouth, the throat, the head, and they retain it as long as they can, for they find a pleasure in it; and so much do they fill themselves with this cruel smoke that they lose their reason. And there are some who take so much of it that they fall down as if they were dead, and remain the greater part of the day or night stupefied. Some men are found who are content with imbibing only enough of this smoke to make them giddy, and no more. See what a wicked and pestiferous poison from the devil this must be! It has happened to me several times, that going through the provinces of Guatemala and Nicaragua, I have entered the house of an Indian who had taken this herb, which, in the Mexican language, is called tobacco, and immediately perceiving the sharp fetid smell of this truly diabolical and stinking smoke, I was obliged to go away in haste and seek some other place.’ These strong words call forth the remark from his translator, Admiral Smith, that ‘surely the royal author of the famous Counterblast must have seen this graphic and early description of a cigar!’ Though in the same key, Benzoni’s is but a feeble breath compared with the fulmination of our British Solomon against the ‘lively image and pattern of hell,’ or the ‘Stygian fumes from the pit that is bottomless!’ The fame of the Indian weed as a healer of the sick had not reached Europe when Benzoni published his travels through the Spanish possessions of the West, but its medicinal property had not escaped his acute observation. He gives a drawing of the medicine man putting three of his patients through a course of his tobacco treatment. The first is represented freely imbibing the fumes of tobacco, the second is just dropping his pipe, and himself off to sleep, and the third swings in a hammock attended by the doctor. Benzoni relates how in La Espanola and the adjacent islands sick men went to the place where the smoke was to be administered, and when they were thoroughly intoxicated by it, the cure was mostly effected. ‘On returning to his senses the patient told a thousand stories of his having been at the council of the gods, and other high visions.’
And as to the origin of the plant, let the old chieftain of the Susquehanna tribe himself relate the story. It will merely be necessary to introduce him to the reader seated with his family, and a few braves gathered around him, listening to the words of a Swedish missionary, who expounds to them the creed of the Christian and the scriptural narrative of our first parents. The sermon over, the old chief, with easy grace and measured words, replies: ‘What you have told us is very good, we thank you for coming so far to tell us those things you have heard from your mothers; in return we will tell you what we have heard from ours.
‘In the beginning we had only flesh of animals to eat, and if they failed they starved. Two of our hunters having killed a deer and broiled part of it, saw a young woman descend from the clouds, and seat herself on a hill hard by. Said one to the other, “It is a spirit, perhaps, that has smelt our venison; let us offer some of it to her.” They accordingly gave her the tongue. She was pleased with its flavour, and said, “Your kindness shall be rewarded, come here thirteen moons hence and you shall find it.” They did so, and found where her right hand had touched the ground maize growing, where her left hand had been, kidney-beans, and where she had sat they found tobacco!’