practically coterminous with gardening. ... At the 
present time tobacco is used in one form or another and 
for one purpose or another by nearly all the Indian tribes 
of Middle and South America from Honduras to Cape 
Horn.’’ He points out two dominant trends in use: 
marked tribal and territorial expansion and equally 
marked secularization, and he concludes: ‘‘EKarly use was 
almost exclusively magico-religious and/or medicinal, 
but in some regions, as in the West Indies, was pretty 
surely secular and hedonic as well.’’' 
Columbus was offered tobacco leaves along with other 
articles by Indians off San Salvador in 1492; not know- 
ing what they were, he threw them away. Later, one 
of his scouts learned from the Indians how to smoke the 
leaves (34). 
The general trend from ceremonial to hedonic use 
however, is largely post-Columbian and is due primarily 
to European influence (20).° 
The use of tobacco by man must be of great antiquity. 
‘‘Native of tropical America,’’ Ames (6) writes ‘“‘it is 
unknown in the wild state. .. . The use of the leaves as 
a smoking material, as a masticatory, and in the form of 
snuff, and the knowledge of the necessary fermentation 
to convert the leaves into an acceptable condition, mani- 
fests great antiquity for it as a narcotic.’”’ 
Of some 41 species of tobacco, only two seem to have 
been used commonly in the past and are cultivated at 
present: NM. Tabacum and N. rustica (41). Brooks (15) 
reports: ‘‘The nicotine content of tobacco is highly vari- 
able and must have been greater as used by aborigines 
than today after a long development of tobacco with low 
nicotine content. ... This, coupled with deep inhalation 
of smoke, may explain in part the narcotic effect of to- 
bacco upon American primitives as reported by early 
observers. 
[ 29 ] 
