426 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 100., Nov. 28. '57. 



name for tobacco is huhim or hutun — a smoker is 

 butuner. (Greg, de Rostrenen, Diet) 



There can be no doubt that Oviedo understood 

 the Indians of Hispaniola to call the smoke, or 

 act of smoking, tobacco. Besides the expressions 

 already quoted, he says that "the negroes also 

 smoked, and found that these smokes relieved them 

 of their weariness — estos tabacos les quitan el can- 

 sancio" (Hist. Gen. lib. v. f. 47. ed. 1547.) 



Nevertheless, as an illustration of the errors 

 so constantly propagated by merely quoting au- 

 thorities, I may state that many writers on tobac- 

 co refer to Oviedo to prove that it was the pipe, 

 or fork-like tube, which was called tabaco. The 

 first writer thus misunderstanding Oviedo was a 

 critic in the Quarterly Review for 1828, vol. 

 xxxiii. p. 202. In 1840, Dr. Cleland, in his 

 Essay on Tobacco, proclaimed the same assertion 

 as a discovery ; followed by many others, amongst 

 the rest, by M. Denis, who, in a very pompous 

 article on tobacco, repeats the assertion, and tri- 

 umphantly crows over all previous investigators, 

 exclaiming — " The thing was simple enough ! but 

 who thinks of reading Oviedo ? " . . . Certainly 

 the old black letter type of Oviedo is not very 

 enticing, but M. Denis quotes the well-printed 

 French translation of 1536, which is decidedly 

 inaccurate and imperfect. (Du Tab. au Parag, 

 par Demersay, Lettre de M. Denis, p. v. and 

 xxxiii.) It is this inaccurate translation of the 

 passage in Oviedo which has misled all these wri- 

 ters, not the original, which, to the disgrace of the 

 Spanish nation, has not been reprinted. 



Schlozer is the only writer who has evidently 

 read the original, and has seized the obvious 

 meaning of Oviedo. " Er nennt die Pflanze nicht 

 (das Rauchen durch die Nase selbst, sagt er, 

 nennten die Wilden auf S. Domingo, Tabaco 

 macben)," Briefw. iii. "He does not name the 

 plant, but says that the Indians of St. Domingo 

 call the act of smoking through the nose Tabaco." 

 In fact they said tabaco, just as we say to smoke. 

 Their pipe was either a simple tube, or shaped 

 like the letter Y. They inserted the two upper 

 ends into their nostrils, and thus most barbarously 

 inhaled the fume for the express purpose of pro- 

 ducing intoxication, — just as Europeans at the 

 height of civilisation use opium.* 



* There is at Paris a club of opium-smokers, whose 

 members call tliemselves Opiophils. They have a journal 

 — as other enlightened societies — and each member is 

 bound by rule to record therein a statement of all his 

 sensations and reveries experienced during the intoxi- 

 cation. It has been said that extremes touch each other, 

 and that the end of civilisation is — barbarism. And how 

 shall we account for the fact that the importation of 

 opium, in London, increased from 103,718 lbs. in 1850, 

 to 118,915 lbs. in 1851, whilst in 1852- it amounted to 

 250,790 lbs. ? (Tiedemann, Gesch. des Tabahs, 417.) In 

 1854 opium gave to the revenue 954/. ; in 1855, 2,768/. ; 

 in 1856, 2,762/. 



It was Hernandez to whom these writers should 

 have referred as a positive authority for the Hay- 

 tian pipe-tube being called tabaco. (Nova Plan- 

 tarum Hist., c. 80. ed. Rom. 1651.) Tabacos 

 vocant arundinum cava perforataqxie fragmenta, Sfc. 



The precise and positive manner of Oviedo, a 

 resident Alcaid, referring as he does to other 

 opinions, seems to warrant confidence in his appli- 

 cation of the word — in Hayti, and so far con- 

 firmed by Benzoni; but, as general conclusion, 

 we may maintain that we do not know positively 

 what was meant by the word tabaco originally. 



In Cuba the roll or cigar was so called accord- 

 ing to Las Casas, who describes and compares it 

 to the squibs used by Spanish children at the fes- 

 tival of Pentecost. It is curious that the same term 

 is now applied in Havannah to the cigar. Fumar 

 or chupar un tabaco, means " to smoke a cigar." 



It is perhaps worth while to trace the origin of 

 the word cigar, sometimes erroneously written 

 segar. Because the islanders of Ceylon made their 

 cigars after the original fashion of the Cubans and 

 Brazilians, it has been supposed that the word 

 originated in that island : thus, Ceylon, cigale, 

 cigar; a most comical mode of derivation certainly. 

 I apprehend that the word is merely the original 

 cigarron of the Spanish language. From its ap- 

 pearance, the Spaniards likened the roll to their 

 cigarron or large balm-cricket. Hence the Euro- 

 pean or Spanish name ; and most appropriate it 

 is, if we can rely on the testimony of contempla- 

 tive smokers. Balm ! indeed, they exclaim, to 

 the soul in her afilictions -^ in spite of all your 

 calumnies — most generous cigar ! Cricket, truly, 

 if you like — "little inmate, full of mirth," and no 

 grasshopper. 



" Though in shape and tint they be 

 Form'd as if akin to thee, 

 Thou surpassest — happier far — 

 AU the grasshoppers that are ! " 



In the Origines Tabaci, Benzoni's account of 

 smoking must rank amongst the latest of the early 

 notices. Seventy years before was the fact well 

 known, and reported by Columbus himself, as set 

 forth in his son's Historia del Almirante. In allu- 

 sion to this well-known fact, Cohausen describes 

 Columbus as seeking the remotest land under the 

 sun, and flying to a new world like Noah's dove — 

 veluti columba Nocea — and bringing back in his 

 mouth — not an olive branch, but a leaf of to- 

 bacco ! (De Pica Nasi, p. 7.) 



In the Life of the Admiral will also be found 

 Romano Pane's account of snufF-taking by the na- 

 tives of Hispaniola, and observations on the same 

 topic by Columbus himself. 



The minute account by Las Casas in 1527 

 comes next, and in 1533 Peter Martyr de- 

 scribed the use of snuff in the worship of the 

 Cemies or Zemes, the rural and household genii 

 of the natives, the plant being called Cohobba. 



