I 



AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 593 



a Tuuguse pipe in Seebobui's Siberia iu Asia, with the pipes (iiiiired fioiu our collec- 

 tion. Moreover, the method of smoking is precisely that practiced in Siberia, even 

 to the proportion of wood mixed Avith tobacco. The consideration of the qnestiou 

 whence the Siberians ap(iuired this {peculiar method of smoking would lead nie 

 beyond the bounds of the present work, but I can not leave the subject of pipes 

 without calling attention to the fact that Nordenskirdd has alluded to the resem- 

 blance of these to the Japanese pipes. A gentleman who has spent many years in 

 China also informs me that the Chinese pipes are of a very similar type and smoked 

 in mnch the same way. 



At Kolymsk in 1820, according to Ferdinand Wrangell, the tobacco 

 was mixed by tlie Russians with finely powdered larch wood to make it 

 go farther.^ 



Sir William Edward Parry, while in the Fury and Hecla, 181*1-1823, 

 collected upward of live hundred words, but the list contains no word 

 either for pipe or tobacco.^ 



This would indicate beyond doubt that the language contained none 

 such and that the smoking habit was comparatively new to them, which 

 certainly appears the accepted belief. 



Murdoch says: ''We have indeed positive proof that the people of 

 the Mackenzie region acquired the habit of smoking from their western 

 neighbors."^ 



Of their present habit, however, he says: "All the Eskimo, with the 

 exception of the so-called Arctic Highlanders, of Smith Sound, and per- 

 haps some of the more remote tribes of the central region, are passion- 

 ately addicted to the use of tobacco. East of Cape Bathurst it is 

 perfectly well known that the taste was acquired directly from the 

 Europeans, Danes and English, who have made more or less permanent 

 settlement in these regions. On the other hand, the first explorers 

 who visited the Eskimo on the northwest coast of America found 

 tobacco alreadj^ in use among them."^ 



Capt. F. W. Beechy says of the natives of Kotzebue Sound in 1825- 

 1828: "We were joined by three Caiacs from some tents near us and 

 four from the river who were very troublesome, pestering us for tawack, 

 and receiving the little we had to give in the most ungracious manner 

 without offering any return."''^ 



Mr. James G. Swan says of the natives of Cape Flattery : "After eat- 

 ing they sometimes, but not always, indulge iu a whiff of tobacco, but 

 smoking is not a universal practice among them, * * * Smoking 

 is practiced even less than among some of the tribes east of the Kocky 

 Mountains, and there are no ceremonials connected with its use. Occa- 

 sionally an Indian will swallow a quantity of smoke, which, being 



'Narrative of an Expedition to the Polar Sea, 1820-1823, London, 1840. 



"Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage, 1821-1823, 

 London, 1824. 



'John Murdoch, On the Siberian Origin of Some Customs of the Western Eskimo, 

 American Authropologist, I, p, 330. 



^ Idem, p. 330. 



^Narrative of a Voyage to Pacific and llcring Strait, p. ,322, Loudon, l83i. 

 NAT MUS 97 38 



