AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 405 



nostrils in siiutt" serves to purge the bead, and the other virtues of it 

 are well known and esteemed in Spain, so that they give it the name of 

 Yerba Sdncta,''^ or Herbe Sainte, according to Labat.'- 



Herrera refers to tobacco in Peru as a medicinal herb called piccietl, 

 "which stops pains brought on by colds, and taken in the form of a 

 smoke is a cure for rheumatism, asthma, and colds, and the Indians 

 and negroes carry it in their mouths, which makes them sleep, and so 

 that they will not feel fatigued."^ 



IJlloa says that m the early part of the last century Lima's commerce 

 consisted largely of snuff. " The merchants dealing in it sell only per- 

 fumes, such as amber, musk," etc.^ 



Dr. von Ihering doubts that the Chileans knew of tobacco and smoked 

 the same out of pipes before the arrival of the Spanish; though we are 

 told that in each temple there are two figures in relief, or two statues 

 with black beaks, before which they continually burn the wood of certain 

 trees of the country which have a very sweet odor.' 



It is undoubted that, although the smell of burning tobacco is objec- 

 tionable to- many people, there are others who find it most agreeable, 

 the matter being to a great extent one of education. 



Thomas Man, an Englishman, in 1(302, called the plant tobacco, 

 though Dr. Monardes, a Spanish writer, employed the term as early as 

 1571. The French, as early as their first voyage to Montreal (about 

 l(i5(>), called tobacco i)etun, a term by which they referred to it for a long 

 period. The word is sometimes spelled petum. Petun was, according 

 to Fairholt, the word used by De Bry and "Herbe La Reine" was 

 employed by Jean Neander, of Leyden, as also by Herba Legati." 

 Romano Pane, a Spanish priest, sent back by Columbus during his 

 second voyage to Hispaniola, in De Insularum Ritibus {l-i91), speaks of 

 a medicinal and religious plant, an herba inebrians, cohoba, cohobba, 

 or giva. By whatever terms tobacco has been called, the words 

 "tobacco" and "petun" are the two from which all other languages 

 api)ear to have selected the name for this plant. 



Knevet, about l.^iO^i, speaks of the natives of the West Indies as 

 "mighty takers of tobacco," and think it not only the best thing- their 

 country produces, but one of the greatest necessaries of life; for besides 

 its use ill smoking and chewing thej^ practice all their chirurgery with 

 it and apply that alone in case of any hurt whatever.' 



'Garcillasso di- la Vega, The Royal Commentaries of Peru, p. 47, London, 1688. 



-Labat. Nouvean Voyage aux Isles de I'Amorique, IV, p. 478, Hague, 1724. 



'Historia General, p. 212, Madrid. 



^Antonio de Ulloa, Voyage Historique de rAmorlqne Moridionale, Book I, Chaj). X, 

 p. 4!)0; and Don George .Juan. A Voyage to South America, Loudon, 1772, ISook II, 

 Chap. X, p. 109. 



•'^Histoire de la Decouvertc et de la Conquote de Perou, p. 15, Paris, 1830. 



'^William Bragge, Bibliotheca Nicotiana. See also De Htrba Panacea, Birmingham, 

 1880; Neander, Tobacologia, Hoogenhayan, 1644, pp. IX, 103, 122, 137. 



'.John Harris, Knevets descri])tions of the natives of the West Indies, Voyages 

 aud Travels, I, p. 70o, Lomlon, 1705. 



