Native Americans

Many Native Americans throughout North and South America believe that tobacco is so powerful that it was involved in the very act of creating the world. In the Pima or O'odham origin story, for example, Blue Gopher lit a huge cigarette made out of Coyote's tobacco wrapped in a cornhusk. He puffed toward the east in a great white cloud that cast a shadow over the land. A carpet of grass grew in the shadow. Blue Gopher scattered the seeds of other plants across the grassy area, thereby causing corn to grow.

In one version of the Navajo creation story, Sky Father and Earth Mother smoked tobacco, before creation began, to help them plan the awesome task that lay ahead. Morning Star—a Crow Indian deity—turned into the first tobacco plant after he fell from the sky. The first tobacco grew from the head of Earth Mother, one of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) creator spirits, while the Cahuilla creator Mukat drew the first tobacco and pipe from his heart, then made the sun to light them. After he was killed, tobacco grew from his heart. The Kickapoo creator Kitzihiat also used a piece of his heart to make the first tobacco. Pulekukewerek, one of the Yurok creator woges, grew from a tobacco plant; then tobacco continued to grow from the palms of his hands, so that he never ran out.

The Huichol in the mountains of western Mexico have similar beliefs, as do the Shipibo along the upper Amazon in Peru and the Haida and Tlingit in southern Alaska and many native peoples in between. In one version of the Huichol creation story, the first tobacco grew from the semen of Deer Person, one of their most powerful deities, who turned into corn and peyote and whose blood is still used to nourish corn and bless babies. Huichol tobacco belongs to Grandfather Fire—the most powerful deity of all—tobacco was once a hawk and even today it is the spiritual essence of the gods. Huichol tobacco (makutsi) is also the most powerful tobacco on earth, almost as powerful as peyote and able to cause visions, with up to 18 percent nicotine.

The belief that tobacco is so powerful that it figured into creation itself is widespread throughout North and South America. Even the tribes that lack this belief have similar concepts; for example, that the spirits are addicted to tobacco. American Indians view tobacco, almost without exception, as an essential, core element of their religions and rituals. Taken together, these widespread beliefs and practices strongly suggest that tobacco use is a very ancient activity in the Americas, so old and elemental that it probably began very early on, in prehistoric humankind's existence in the Americas.

Evidence for the Early Use of Tobacco

Of the seven species of Nicotiana that have been and still are being used by Native Americans, two were domesticated by prehistoric Indians to the extent that the plant species could not survive, beyond a few generations, without the help of people who planted them, weeded them, and otherwise tended to their basic needs. These domesticated species and their regions of use by Native North Americans (exclusive of commercial tobacco and recent introductions) are as follows:

The five other tobacco species, in contrast, are wild plants that can and do thrive from generation to generation without the help of humans, though they do prefer disturbed environments, such as arroyo beds (stream sides), road cuts, and burned over areas, which humans readily provide. The species Nicotiana quadrivalvis is somewhere in between domesticated and wild: Two of its varieties (wallacei and bigelovii) are wild, though they are often cultivated, whereas the other two (quadrivalvis and multivalvis) are known only in cultivation. The wild species and their regions of use are as follows:

Archeological evidence from North America indicates the use of several tobacco species for thousands of years. The earliest known tobacco in South America is only a few hundred years old. Earlier evidence is undoubtedly there, since the ancestors of all of these tobacco species originated in South America millions of years ago, then slowly expanded their ranges north through Central America and on into North America or later were carried there. ?

? See the map in "Origin and Diffusion."

The archaeological evidence of tobacco comes primarily in the form of carbonized seeds and preserved pollen, which are very difficult to recover and identify. Even the largest tobacco seed is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, which means that it takes a very fine mesh screen with holes no larger than one-quarter of 1 millimeter across to recover a seed. And while tobacco pollen is fairly distinctive down to the generic level (Nicotiana), it is not possible to distinguish among the various species (rustica or tabacum) based on pollen. Also, the pollen of one of tobacco's close relatives (lycium, or Wolfberry) is similar to Nicotiana, so the use of pollen can be problematic.

Despite these drawbacks, archeologists in North America have been successful in finding prehistoric tobacco, and there is good evidence for its initial use as early as 1400 b.c.e. in the Southwestern deserts, and by about 180 c.e. in the Eastern woodlands.

The sequence of development, as shown in the map, is summarized as follows. The roman numerals correspond to the map categories.

ANCIENT FARMING. In both the Southwest and the Eastern woodlands, domesticated tobacco first appeared with other cultivated plants as part of a larger horticultural complex that also included wild plants. In the Southwest, this gardening tradition consisted of cultivated tobacco, and two species of wild tobacco, along with maize, squash, beans, wild and cultivated amaranths, goosefoot and other weedy annuals that were encouraged or at least tolerated in the farm fields. In the East, early gardening focused on cultivated sunflowers, goosefoot, and marsh elder, with corn and cultivated tobacco added 1,000 years later.

Wild plants were clearly involved in the adoption of corn, tobacco, squash, and beans by the prehistoric Native Americans. In both the Southwest and later the East, maize and tobacco did not arrive out of a vacuum, nor did they drop into one. They were already being grown to the south, in central Mexico, where maize-based agriculture began around 5000 b.c.e., then moved slowly north, as local hunters and foragers added it to their plant husbandry tradition. Or perhaps small agricultural groups expanded their ranges or maybe even migrated from one region to another. However it spread, farming was added to an already existing husbandry complex that involved the encouragement and even planting of a number of wild plants. Two species of wild tobacco, as well as amaranth, goosefoot, purslane, globe mallow, and other plants that preferred disturbed soils, were included in the complex in the Southwest. The early gardening culture in the east grew goosefoot, marshelder and sunflowers, and may have grown wild squash and gourds, maygrass, knotweed and a few other plants.

After the addition of cultivated tobacco, corn, squash, and beans, agricultural societies rapidly evolved throughout North and South America. By the eve of European contact, cultivated tobacco was traded far to the north of its range, into northern Canada, and even the wild Nicotiana quadrivalvis variety multivalvis was encouraged, if not cultivated, in southern Alaska. Similar processes were at work in South America, and by the time the Europeans arrived, the use and veneration of tobacco was a key, core element of all Native American cultures, with the exception of the Inuit (Eskimo) and Aleut, who were too far away to participate in the tobacco trade system.

From the southern tip of South America to southern Alaska, tobacco was ingested in many forms, including pipes, reed cane and corn husk cigarettes, even in maple and other wild plant leaves. It was also chewed, licked, snuffed, taken as eye drops, and even administered in enemas. Some tribes preferred to smoke tobacco in carved stone, calumet-style pipes, such as those used by the Plains Indians, while others used smaller stone and clay pipes, reed and leaf wrapped cigarettes, or, most simply of all, a wad of tobacco leaves packed between a person's cheeks and teeth or between the lips and teeth.

Tobacco in Native American Religion

Tobacco is the heart of Native American religion and the core of American Indian culture. Tobacco has remained a constant unifying force, linking all tribes together, linking all generations together for thousands of years. Even as Native American religions changed and became organizationally more complex, tobacco use also became more complex, as did the activities of the deities who created it and who were created by it.

Many Native Americans continue to use tobacco in a sacred manner, while others smoke, chew, and snuff it in the same manner as non-Indians, as a recreational drug. For the traditionalists, there is nothing recreational about tobacco, for it is considered a sacred plant, a life-affirming force, a food of the spirits, at times a god itself. From southern Chile to Alaska, Native Americans have used and continue to use Nicotiana rustica, N. tabacum, N. attenuata, and several other species of tobacco as a ritual narcostimulant—a psychotrophic, mind-altering substance that serves as a medium between the ordinary world of humans and the super-ordinary world of spirits. Tobacco leaves were and are smoked in pipes, cigars, and cigarettes. Leaves are chewed (often with lime from shells) and sometimes eaten. Resin and concentrates are licked. An infusion is drunk, occasionally with Datura and/or other hallucinogenic plants. Tobacco powder is snuffed. Tobacco smoke is blown on the body and leaves are used medically as a poultice. Tobacco incense is burned. Tobacco offerings are buried, cast on the ground, into the air, onto the water.

TOBACCO AND MEDICINE SOCIETIES. Beginning with individual medicine men and women who ministered to the religious and medical needs of their bands and other groups, American Indian religion became more organized as populations increased, beliefs changed, and outside political and economic relations evolved. After the individual medicine people came the medicine societies, composed of most if not all of the members of the group, with different societies providing different medicines and religious ceremonies. And eventually the societies evolved into priesthoods, whose memberships were restricted and often hereditary, and whose leaders became so powerful that theocracies often emerged, such as the Aztecs and Incas, whose leaders were the highest priests in the land.

But whatever the level and scope of religious power, tobacco was and is still used, with even the medicine people, medicine societies, and priesthoods taking on tobacco-oriented themes and identities. Thus there are Tobacco shamans in South and Central America who ingest the plant almost constantly, not only to heal and bless but also to commune directly with the tobacco spirits.

There are also tobacco medicine societies, such as among the Crow on the upper Missouri, whose sole function is to grow two kinds of sacred tobacco, Nicotiana quadrivalvis varieties quadrivalvis and multivalvis, which are essential for the survival of the tribe. And there are or were even tobacco priesthoods, such as the Cult of Cihuacoatl among the Aztecs, the mother of the other gods, the Snake Woman whose physical manifestation on earth was the tobacco plant and whose chief priest—also called Snake Woman—was second in power only to the great Montezuma himself.

Tobacco shamans, tobacco medicine societies, and tobacco priesthoods were part of an array of Native American religious groups that ranged from the individual medicine-people of tiny bands of Caribou hunters in northern Canada to the deified leaders of huge city-states in Peru that controlled vast empires. All used tobacco as a universal means of communicating with each other as well as with the spirit world.

Tobacco Use During the Inipi Sweat Lodge Ceremony

M ost contemporary Native American ceremonies involve the use of tobacco. One of the most popular rituals is the Inipi purification ceremony of the Lakota, which has been adapted by many individuals and pan-tribal groups throughout the United States. Most tribes have their own sweat lodge purification ceremonies, and the amalgam of Lakota Inipi and another tribe's purification rite, such as the Navajo's, is a ceremony that is filled with the smoke of sacred tobacco. In most sweat lodges a Plains Indian–style carved stone and wooden pipe is used; in others, especially in the Southwest, Navajo and Pueblo-style corn husk cigarettes are smoked. All of the participants in the ceremony are purified in two ways: by the steam from the hot rocks and by the smoke from the tobacco. Each participant is given the opportunity to smoke one or more times, and to blow out the smoke and rub it on his (and in some case her) legs, head, and other body parts. It is also puffed in the four directions, and a prayer is often said for one of the participants. There are many variations to this theme, but the overall thrust is that tobacco smoke is a sacred, purifying element that not only cleanses the body and soul but also pleases the Great Spirit and other deities as it wafts its way into the heavens. The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux provides detailed descriptions of tobacco use during the Inipi and other Lakota ceremonies.

That done they blew the tobacco in all four directions where it appeared as a fog in which they moved away. Those were the sun's inner form, the moon's inner form, and the inner forms of the mountains that had been made. For these the (smoke) ceremony had been performed (to show respect for the inner forms to be). For these, what was to be dark cloud and dark mist, male rain and female rain, sunray, pollens of dawn and evening twilight, rainbow, all of these were laid down before them, in these they clothed themselves (from the Blessingway Songs of Earth's Inner Form, in Wyman, pp. 124–127).

See Also Caribbean; Mayas; Origin and Diffusion; Shamanism; South and Central America.

? JOSEPH WINTER

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bohrer, Vorsila. L. "Flotation Analysis from High Rolls Cave (LA 114103) Otero County, New Mexico." In Southwest Ethnobotanical Enterprises Report 39. Portales, N. Mex., 2003. This unpublished work contains the earliest archaeological dates of tobacco. Eventually it will be published by the state of New Mexico.

Brown, Joseph E. The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953.

Gerstel, D. U. "Tobacco Nicotiana tabacum (Solanaceae)." In Evolution of Crop Plants. Edited by N. W. Simmonds. London: Longman, 1976.

Russell, Frank. The Pima Indians. Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, 1975.

Wilbert, Johannes. Tobacco and Shamanism in South America. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1987.

Winter, Joseph C. "Feeding the Ancestors: The Role of Tobacco in the Evolution of Southwestern Agriculture and Religion." In La Frontera, Papers in Honor of Patrick H. Beckett. Paper 24. Las Cruces, N.Mex.: Archaeological Society of New Mexico, 1999.

——, ed. Tobacco Use By Native North Americans Sacred Smoke and Silent Killer. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.

Wyman, Leland C. Blessingway. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987.

snuff a form of powdered tobacco, usually flavored, either sniffed into the nose or "dipped," packed between cheek and gum. Snuff was popular in the eighteenth century but had faded to obscurity by the twentieth century.