Smoking

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SMOKING

SMOKING . Plants whose properties when consumed place the user in an unusual state have always been looked upon as being endowed with supernatural power. Such plants play an important part in both religious ceremonies and in healing. In such a context, these plants have been either used as symbols or consumed in different forms, including smoking. The one plant that has consistently maintained such religious association is tobacco, a New World contribution to the world's flora. Other plant products that can be smoked, such as hashish and opium, both of which originated in the Near East, have never had significant functions in religious ritual, although most recently some midwestern sects in the United States claim hashish smoking as part of their religious rituals.

The genus Nicotiana (tobacco) consists of seventy-four species, all but two of which are native to the North American continent. The latter two, N. fragrans and N. suaveolens, grow wild in Australia but were not used for smoking before the arrival of the white people. The most popular species are N. rustica and N. tabacum. Several others, such as N. bigelovii and N. attenuata, grow wild in the western Unites States. Indian tribes of California, the northern Plains, and the Northwest Coast are known to have planted these as their only agricultural effort.

Ancient Native American and European reports describe tobacco as a strong and addictive herb smoked with apparent hallucinogenic effects. Tobacco as it is known today produces no such effects. The indigenous people of the American continent may have been using more potent admixtures, or tobacco may have only induced a state that allowed its user to ease into altered states of consciousness.

It is possible that the use of tobacco was at first confined to shamans, priests, and medicine men. Data indicate that the tobacco plant and products derived from it were held in high esteem and those who grew or could obtain the plant used it as a precious offering to both worldly and supernatural rulers. Later, due to the interchange of ritual customs, the abundance of tobacco in some areas, and European influence, tobacco smoking became a worldwide custom; but its sacrosanct character among the natives of the Americas survived.

North America

Tobacco initially grew wild. Gathered as a cultivated plant, it made its appearance with maize in North America. The two primary modes of tobacco consumption were smoking pipes and cigarettes and chewing. Tobacco pipes have been found in archaeological excavations of basket making culture sites (some as early as 2500 bce) in the Southwest.

The Plains Indians developed considerable skill and ingenuity, as well as aesthetic sensitivity and care in making pipes. As Peter T. Furst points out,

No object, no matter how splendidly proportioned or complex in iconography, can convey the enormous depth of feeling, ritual and belief, the very conception of the universe and how it came to be, the mutuality and interdependence of the sexes, and, indeed the whole relationship of human beings to the holy earth and sky, which are embodied in these traditional Native American smoking instruments. (Furst, 1982)

The famous Plains pipes are made of catlinite, thought to represent the flesh and blood of dead ancestors and dead buffalo, poured together and turned to stone. Catlinite had been mined in southwestern Minnesota by the Oto and Iowa tribes, who were replaced in the seventeenth century by Siouan-speaking groups, who became sole owners of the sacred material and compelled all other tribes to buy the stone from them.

Bowl and stem of the ritual pipe were carried separately when not in use. Apart, the instruments had no supernatural power. In many tribes women carved or decorated the stems, which had male attributes, and men fashioned the bowls, which were considered to have female attributes. The Plains Indians undertook no ceremony or ritual act without smoking pipes, which were kept in their medicine bundles. When an Indian died, his tobacco and pipe were placed with him in his burial place.

Kinnikinnick was the native name for the smoked material. This term means "mixture" to the Algonquin. They mixed their tobacco with different plant materials, such as sumac, bearberry, manzanilla, and dogwood bark. Though they used plants other than tobacco for smoking, none had the sacred nature attributed to tobacco.

The Indians of the Northwest Coast were introduced to smoking by Western explorers, who found them chewing their tobacco with lime. These tribes limited tobacco to important rituals, especially to commemorative feasts for the dead. Their pipes were carved out of wood or ivory and decorated with pictures of animals or mythological scenes. The shamans smoked pipes primarily to communicate with their guardian spirits and also during healing ceremonies. For them, tobacco was the symbol of the equilibrium of the universe and of divine benevolence from generation to generation.

South America

Both N. tabacum and N. rustica were modified by selection or by hybridization in South America, probably in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and northern Argentina. Even today, tobacco is used by many native tribes, but is rarely smoked by them. The preferable form of consumption is chewing or drinking in the form of a syrupy juice. Tobacco juice is taken either by mouth or through the nostrils, or administered as an enema. The last method has been documented for the Inca and Tihuanaco of the pre-Conquest periods.

Smoking tobacco for the purpose of divination was practiced by Venezuelan tribes, who also offered tobacco as a gift to their gods. The Guajiro of Colombia, the Kumaná of the Orinoco River, and the Warao and the Shipibo-Conibo on the Ucayali River also celebrate healing ceremonies by smoking, or smoke in preparation for other drug use. The Piro and the Machiganga of Peru inhale tobacco snuff through tubes made of bird bones as medicine against colds. This old remedy was adopted by Europeans in the sixteenth century.

Mesoamerica

The most extensive depictions of smoking and the oldest and most abundant data on the pre-Columbian use of tobacco (mostly in the form of cigars) are found in Maya art. The word cigar is Maya in origin; the word tobacco might be derived from an Arawak word for "cigar." The Maya also depicted cigarette smoking, for which there are no early records elsewhere. Pipe smoking did not appear in Maya art, and it is doubtful that it was a custom. Early Spanish reports describe the coating of cigars with a varnish of clay, which was then decorated, and the stuffing of small tubes of cane, clay, and other materials with shredded tobacco, which was either smoked or used to blow smoke.

Besides smoking, the Maya also chewed, licked, ate, and drank tobacco, social customs reported frequently from Conquest times to the present day. Tobacco as a form of incense, however, had an exclusive and important role in ceremonial healing. The Maya attributed most diseases to supernatural intervention, and native healing was, and still is, a predominantly religious act of communication with supernatural forces in which religion and medicine remain inseparable.

The pre-Columbian Maya often depicted their divine rulers, nobles, and gods smoking. Among the deities, god L appears to be a heavy smoker; the death god, the rain god, god D of the creation, and the ancestral god N could be characterized as only occasional indulgers. God K not only smokes on occasion but he is shown with a smoking cigar stuck through his forehead. Some of the mythological animals, usually representing gods, are also shown smoking: Monkeys have a strong lead, with jaguars second, and frogs or toads third. All of these animals are also patron deities of days or months.

Noble Maya lords were also frequently shown smoking or handling cigars or cigarettes either alone or in the company of others. Apparently no women participated in these rituals, although they are sometimes shown on ancient paintings and monuments in proximity to smokers. The context of these scenes is varied and not always clear. There are processional scenes with supernaturals and their impersonators, and there are scenes with offerings of human victims or other sacrifices. Other smoking scenes commemorate ancestors and still others show smoking to be one of several ways to achieve a state of trance.

The Lacandon, a few hundred Maya Indians still living in the Chiapas rain forest, continue to cultivate tobacco in the ancient ways. They believe that the Nohoch Yum Chacob, the white-haired, bearded servants of the god of rain and thunder, live in the second highest level of the heavens and smoke cigars. Comets or meteorites are thought to be the glowing butts they throw away. Until recently the Lacandon placed cigars as offering to their gods in the holy area. There is a special ceremony of thanksgiving during their tobacco harvest: Thanksgiving is offered to the deity depicted on a "god pot," who is usually smoking, seated on the hieroglyph for "earth."

The Maya of Yucatán believe that the Balams, the gods of wind and the four directions, are heavy cigar smokers. When the gods light the cigars by pounding heavy rocks together to create a spark, there is thunder and lightning on earth. Tobacco smoking also has an important role in a number of milpa (corn patch) ceremonies.

The Tzeltal Maya of Oxchuc offer thirteen calabashes of tobacco in their celebration of the New Year. The Tzotzil tribe attributes magical power to tobacco and uses it as a defense against evil forces, such as Pucuh, the demon of death. Tobacco in all its forms is considered by most Maya tribes as the most effective agent against the numerous underworld threats, evil spirits, demons, and any form of witchcraft that may cause illness or death. The healing shaman uses tobacco to divine the exact cause of the illness and to find out how to help the patient. Maya travelers protect themselves from evil influences by chewing tobacco and by carrying gourds filled with tobacco. In many of the Mesoamerican areas, tobacco and smoking paraphernalia are placed in graves to accompany the spirit of the dead as a protection during the journey to the underworld and as a gift the dead can offer to the gods.

The main body of data on tobacco use among the Aztec comes from observations and reports by Europeans. Torquemada (1615) wrote that the old earth goddess, Cihuacoatl, female warrior and creator of humankind, had a body composed of tobacco, and she was the incarnation of the plant. Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón (1629) described rites to honor the war god, Huitzilopochtli, to whom an offering of tobacco is as pleasing as one composed of other drugs. Fray Diego Durán (c. 1581) reported that the fire god, Xiuhtecuhtli, received tobacco, incense, and pulque daily, sprinkled onto the fire in his temple. The priests who prepared victims for sacrifice to the goddess Toci (old earth or moon goddess, patron of the day named Jaguar) wore small tobacco gourds on their backs, as did the priests serving Tezcatlipoca, the counterpart to the Maya god K. Both in the Codex Mendoza and in the Codex Florentine several of the figures participating in sacrificial rites are pictured carrying tobacco gourds (yetecomatl) and pouches (yequachtli ) or incense ladles (tlemaitl), the insignia of Aztec priesthood. Tobacco was carried in powder form or shaped into balls and used as a form of incense. When actually smoked it was mixed with other herbs, among them jimsonweed (Datura stramonium ). During a beautiful ceremony called Dance of Flowers, the vegetation goddess Xochiquetzal invited other gods to sit with her; they smoked together and were entertained by her court.

Among the Mexicans tobacco was a protection against witchcraft or wild animals, but it could also be used to cast spells. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1569–1582) described a hunt for snakes, which were enfeebled and stunned when powdered tobacco was hurled at them.

The Totonac of Papantla de Olarte believed that tobacco protected them not only against snakes but also against the dead, and they offered it to the supernatural rulers of the forest. The Cuicatec used wild tobacco in rituals conducted on hilltops or in caves. Among the Mazatec the healer used a paste of powdered tobacco and lime to render pregnant women invulnerable to witchcraft. The Tlaxcalan offered tobacco to their war god Camaxtli. Bowls of tobacco, eagle feathers, and two bloodstained arrows were sent to the enemy camp by the cacique of Michoacán to announce the outbreak of war. The Huichol regarded tobacco as a prized possession of Grandfather Fire. They made small tobacco balls, touched them with feathers, and wrapped them in corn husks. During pilgrimages, these "cigarettes" were carried in small gourds tied to their quivers to symbolize the birth of tobacco. After completion of the pilgrimage, they burned and smoked tobacco in honor of Grandfather Fire.

These ancient and recent reports show that tobacco was used by the Aztec and numerous tribes living between the Maya and North American Indians in the form of incense, as a drink, or by smoking. Smoking of the sacred herb was also practiced by the gods. Tobacco in all its forms and modes of consumption was regarded as a substance of pervading holiness, a gift from the gods, an offering to the supernatural forces of the heavens and the underworld, and a means to communicate with them.

Bibliography

Arents, George. Tobacco. 5 vols. Edited by Jerome E. Brooks. New York, 1937–1952.

Durán, Diego. Los dioses y ritos and El calendario (c. 1581). Translated by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden as Book of the Gods and The Ancient Calendar. Norman, Okla., 1971.

Furst, Peter T. Hallucinogens and Culture. San Francisco, 1976.

Furst, Peter T., and Jill L. Furst. North American Indian Art. New York, 1982.

Harner, Michael J., ed. Hallucinogens and Shamanism. Oxford, 1973.

Robicsek, Francis. The Smoking Gods. Norman, Okla., 1978.

Ruiz de Alarcón, Hernando. Tratado de las supersticiones de naturales de esta Neuve España (1629). Translated and edited by J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig as Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629. Norman, Okla., 1985.

Sahagún, Bernardino de. Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (compiled 1569–1582; first published 1820). Translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble as Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, 13 vols. (Santa Fe, N. Mex., 1950–1982).