“‘Your people kill my people constantly, there is war between your race and mine.’
“‘Your people bite my people, the balance between our kindred is even, between you and me; nay, it is in my favour, for I have done you good.’
“‘And that you may not do me harm, I will bite you.’
“‘Do not be so ungrateful.’
“‘I will! I have sworn by the Most High that I will.’
“At the Name the Prophet no longer opposed the viper, but bade him bite on, in the name of God. The snake pierced his fangs in the blessed wrist, which the Prophet not liking, shook him off, but did him no further harm, nor would he suffer those near him to destroy it, but putting his lips to the wound, and sucking out the poison, spat it upon the earth. From these drops sprang that wond’rous weed, which has the bitterness of the serpent’s tooth, quelled by the sweet saliva of the Prophet.”[5]
Happy Moslem! you have solved the mystery, and your heart feels no doubt; but Christian dogs despairingly sigh for some revelation from the past, whether through history or tradition, of the first use of this plant. In vain we enquire who it was that first conceived and put in practice the idea of burning the large leaves of a weed, and drawing in the smoke to spit it out again? Who it was that discovered pleasure or amusement in tickling the nose with that “titillating dust” to enjoy the luxury of a sneeze, or find employment in blowing it out again? Ye shades of heroes departed, that hover around the pine-woods of the Saskatchewan, sail over the rolling prairies of Illinois, or roam along the strands of Virginia, tell us to what illustrious progenitor of Cree or Mohawk we are to accord the honour of a discovery more popular than any since the days when “Adam delved and Eve span?”
In default of the shades giving us the required information, we must resort to the faint footsteps which “the habit” has left imprinted on the sands of Time. Even the name by which it is called, has been disputed and even denied, as of right, belonging to tobacco. This word, Humboldt informs us, like the words savannah, maize, maguey, and manati, belong to the ancient language of Hayti or St. Domingo, and did not properly denote the herb, but the pipe through which it was smoked. Tobacco, according to Oveido, was indigenous in Hispaniola, and much used by the native Indians, who smoked it from a tube in the shape of the letter =Y=, the two branches being inserted in the nostrils, and the stem placed in the burning leaves. The plant was called the cohiba, and the rude instrument by which it was inhaled tabaco.
Other fabulous accounts of the origin of this mystic name, which opens the heart and hand of the savage more readily than that of gold, trace it to Tabacco, a province of Yucatan in New Spain, whence it is stated to have been first brought to Europe. Or affinity is claimed for it with the Island of Tobago, one of the Caribbees, where it grew wild in abundance. Or its derivation is traced to Tobasco, in the island of Florida. In Mexico it was called yetl, and in Peru sagri, meaning in those languages “the herb,” or the herb par excellence, worthy of superiority over all other herbs which the earth ever produced from her bosom.
It seems surprising that a vegetable production so universally spread should have different names among neighbouring people. In North America the Algonkin name is sema, and the Huron oyngoua, and the same dissimilarity exists in the languages of South-American tribes; the Omagua, petema; the Maypure, jema; the Chiquito, pâis; the Vilela, tusup; and the Tamanac, cavai. One would have expected to have found names with less variation among such neighbours. It might be urged, perhaps, that these are all independent ancient names given by each tribe to the plant before they became acquainted with the existence of their neighbours, and an evidence that its use was not derived from each other, nor from travellers passing among them. To these speculations the theorist is welcome.