Use of tobacco among North American Indians

by Ralph Linton

LeafletNumber 15

Use of Tobacco among North American Indians

Tobacco has been one of the most important gifts from the New World to the Old. In spite of the attempts of various authors to prove its Old World origin there can be no doubt that it was introduced into both Europe and Africa from America. Most species of Nicotiana are native to the New World, and there are only a few species which are undoubtedly extra-American. The custom of smoking is also characteristic of America. It was thoroughly established throughout eastern North and South America at the time of the discovery; and the early explorers, from Columbus on, speak of it as a strange and novel practice which they often find it hard to describe. It played an important part in many religious ceremonies, and the beliefs and observances connected with it are in themselves proof of its antiquity. Hundreds of pipes have been found in the pre-Columbian mounds and village sites of the eastern United States and, although these remains cannot be dated, some of them must be of considerable age. In the southwestern United States the Basket Makers, an ancient people whose remains are found below those of the prehistoric Cliff Dwellers, were smoking pipes at a time which could not have been much later than the beginning of our era.

At the time of the discovery of America, tobacco was in use over the greater part of the continent. It was not used in the sub-Arctic regions of North America or in the extreme southern part of Southern America. On the west coast of South America and in the Andean highlands it was replaced by another narcotic, coca (Erythroxylum coca), from which the modern drug cocaine is extracted. The coca leaves were dried and chewed with powdered lime. Tobacco was smoked throughout most of its range, but the tribes of the northwest coast of North America mixed it with shell lime and made it into small pellets which were allowed to dissolve in the mouth. The tribes of Washington, Oregon and a great part of California used it in the same way, but also smoked it. Along the eastern side of the Andean highlands in South America tobacco was both smoked and chewed. The chewing tobacco was prepared like the Andean coca, and the idea was probably borrowed from coca chewing.

Although Europeans learned the custom of smoking from the Indians and even copied the Indian smoking appliances rather closely, the modern American custom of tobacco chewing may not be of Indian origin. None of the North American Indians east of the Rocky Mountains chewed tobacco, and the only point at which South American tobacco chewing reached the Atlantic Coast was a small region in northern Colombia. Modern chewing tobacco lacks the admixture of powdered lime, which was considered necessary by all Indian tobacco chewers and seems to have been an invention of the white frontiersmen. It is possible, however, that the idea of tobacco chewing was carried to the English colonies by the Spaniards, who may have learned it from the South American Indians.

The North American Indians used at least nine species of Nicotiana, most of which were cultivated. Nicotiana tabacum, the species to which practically all the modern commercial tobaccos belong, was grown throughout Mexico, the West Indies, and in northern and eastern South America. It was unknown north of Mexico until its introduction into Virginia by the English colonists. Nicotiana rustica, a much hardier species with a yellow flower, was grown by the Indians of the eastern United States and Canada as far west as the great plains and as far north as agriculture was possible. It was the first tobacco grown in Virginia for the European trade, but was soon supplanted there by N. tabacum. Small patches of it are still cultivated by some of the Central Algonquian tribes who use it in their ceremonies. N. attenuata was used over a larger area than any other species. It is found in its natural state in the southwestern United States and southern plains, and as a cultivated plant extends northward into western Canada and British Columbia. It was also cultivated on the lower Colorado, but the typical Pueblo tribes do not seem to have raised it. N. multivalvis was grown in Washington and Oregon, as well as by the Crow, who lived on the western edge of the plains. A related species (N. quadrivalvis) was grown by the settled tribes along the Missouri river. Still another species (N. biglovii) was used by the California tribes, and is known to have been cultivated by the Hupa. The three last-named species are rather closely related; it seems probable that N. multivalvis and N. quadrivalvis were brought into the plains area from the west, displacing N. attenuata.

PLATE II.

AMERICAN INDIAN TOBACCO PIPES.

1. BOWL OF BASKETMAKER PIPE. 2. BOWLS OF SOUTHWESTERN TUBULAR PIPES. 3. SOUTHWESTERN TUBULAR PIPE, SANDSTONE. 4. CALIFORNIA CLAY PIPE. 5. CALIFORNIA STEATITE PIPE. 6. PIPE WITH STEATITE BOWL AND WOODEN STEM, AND PIPE CASE, CALIFORNIA.