AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SIMOKING CUSTOMS. 445 



tific name Kicoiiana. According to Nadaillac the Spauiards and Pcrtu- 

 guese introduced tobacco into Europe in 1518. Cortez sent seeds of 

 the phint tc Charles V. Ealeigh oft'ered tobacco as a present to Queen 

 Elizabeth in 158G, whence the use of it spread to Holland, then to the 

 numerous colonies of these two countries, and thence with a strange 

 rapidit}' to Asia, Africa, and the limits of the habitable world.' 



William IJragge calls attention to a matter which could not fail to 

 impress any one at all familiar with the subject that " the early bibliog- 

 raphy of tobacco develops the fact that its introduction was greatly 

 facilitated by the supposed benefits which its use would afford the 

 individual from a medicinal standpoint.''^ 



Bragge's collection of pipes, now in the British Museum, made from 

 all parts of the world, and his books relating to tobacco, the former 

 consisting of 13,000 specimens and the latter of 500 volumes was as 

 rich as it was curious, and has probably never been equaled. The 

 medicinal and imaginary properties attaching to tobncco have been 

 marked among the American Indians to no greater extent than in 

 Europe. Eeinbert Dodoens in 1578 said " the perfume of dryed leaves, 

 he sayd he layde upon quick coles taken in the mouth through the 

 pipe of a funnel or tunnel, helpeth such as are troubled with short- 

 ness of winde and fetch their breath thicke and often.'' ^ 



Thomas Hariot, who accompanied Raleigh's expedition to Virginia in 

 1584, says: " there is an herbe which is sowed apart by itself and is 

 called by the Indians uppowoc; in the West Indies it hath divers 

 n:imes, according to the several places and countries where it groweth 

 and is used. The Spaniards generally call it tobacco. The leaves 

 thereof dried and brought into powder they use to take the fume 

 thereof by sucking it through pipes made of clay into their stomach 

 and head; from whence it purgeth superfluous fleame and other gross 

 humors, and openeth all the pores and passages of the body, by which 

 means the use thereof not only preserveth the body from obstructions 

 but also (if any be, so that they have not been of too long continu- 

 ance) in short time breaketh them whereby their bodies are notably 

 preserved in health and know not many grievous diseases wherewith 

 we in England are oftentimes afflicted."^ 



This is probably the first reference to the use of tobacco by an 

 Englishman, and even at the present time such an indorsement of the 

 virtues of a newly discovered plant by a distinguished authority could 

 not fail to be an invaluable advertisement for its use, for Hariot, who 

 carried the tobacco plant to his patron, lialeigh, a favorite at the court 



' Nadaillac, Les Pipes et le Tabac ; Matcriaux pour i'Histoire Primitive et Naturelle 

 <le I'Homme, November, 1885, pp. 498, 499. 



-William Braggc, Bibliothica Nicotiana, Birmingham, 1880. 



•»E. A. Barber, The Auti«[uity of the Tobacco Pipe in Europe, quoting Rembert 

 Dodoens on the virtues of colcfoot in the historie of plantes, American Antiquarian, 

 II, p. 6. 



■i Thomas Hariot, Hakluyt's Voyages, 111, p. 330, London, 1810, from edition of 1600. 



