AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 3()7 



holdiDg HI their hands little lighted brands made of herbs, of which 

 they inhaled according- to their custom."' According to other writers 

 they were said to have indulged in "a fumigation of a peculiar kind." 



The smoke in question was absorbed into the mouth through a 

 charred stick, and was caused bj' burning certain herbs wrai)ped in 

 a dry leaf, which outer covering was called "tabaco."^ 



These messengers, says John Harris, "lighting of an Indian town of 

 fifty houses, they were well treated there, the Spanish being honored 

 as if they had been deities."^ Quite as indefinite is the expression 

 "incensing," later employed on the mainland u])on numerous occasions 

 in the various accounts of Cortez's march to the City of Mexico, or as 

 "perfuming themselves." Las Casas, who was a contemporary of 

 Columbus, and the first bishop of Chiapas, is quoted as saying that the 

 •'two messengers met great numbers of people of both sexes, the men 

 always with a firebrand in their hands and certain herbs for smoking. 

 These were dry, and placed in a dry leaf, after the manner of those 

 paper tubes which the boys in Spain use at Whitsuntide. Lighting 

 one end, they drew the smoke by sucking at the other. This causes 

 drowsiness and a kind of intoxication, aud, according to the statement 

 of natives, relieves them from the feeling of fatigue. These tubes they 

 call by the name of TolacosJ^* 



In the early references to smoking a notable peculiarity is that the 

 term employed very commonly is "herbs," which may be because of 

 Ignorance of the ]>lant smoked, though it is certainly suggestive also 

 of there being more than one, for it is known that certain of our 

 Indians consider it an essential to their ceremonial smokes or dances 

 to have a mixture of different plants to put in the pipe; though when 

 smoking for the purpose of becoming stupefied or intoxicated tobacco 

 is used. The "firebrand" mentioned by Las Casas was " a kind of 

 n)usquetoon packed of a dry leaf, which the Indians lit at one end 

 while they sucked it or inhaled it from the other. These musquetoons 

 were called Tabacos."'' 



Xadaillac says it is here easy to recognize the cigar of the present 

 day, "of which the shape has had but slight modifications." The same 

 could with equal accuracy be said of the cigarette. Cigars and ciga- 

 rettes appear so common in all Spanish America as to cause a strong 

 presumption that one Or other was intended, though the early references 

 are invariably indefinite. 



Las Casas, according to Helps, states that the Indians when ques- 

 tioned about imbibing tobacco smoke said that it took away fatigue. 



'Marquis de Nadaillac, Les Pipes et le Tabac; Mat6riaux pour I'Histoire Primi- 

 tive et Naturelle de I'Hoiume, 1885, p. 498. 



'^Arthur Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, I, p. 125. 



^John Harris, Columbus's First Voyage, Voyages and Travels, I, p. 5, London, 1705. 



^Arthur James Weiso, Discoveries of America to the year 1525, p. 120, New York 

 and London, 1S84. 



'■Les Pipes et k- Tabac; Materiaux, etc., 1885, p. 498. 



