NARCOTIC PLANTS AND STIMULANTS SAFFOKD. 391 



USE OF TOBACCO IN NORTH A3IERICA. 



The antiquity of the custom of tobacco smoking in North America 

 is indicated by the discovery of tobacco pipes in graves and burial 

 mounds in various parts of the United States. Two of these pipes 

 are shown in the accompanying ilhistrations (figs. 1, 2). They are 

 but a sample of many, often fashioned in the shape of mammals, 

 birds, or reptiles, and sometimes of human beings, found in the 

 Scioto Valley, where the writer was born. 

 It was the discovery of objects like these 

 in the mounds near Chillicothe, Ohio, that 

 first instilled in him an interest in study 

 of the origin and history of the aboriginal 

 inhabitants of America. 



So widely spread was tobacco at the 

 time of the discovery that, although a fig. i.— stone pipe from Indian 



plant of subtropical origin, it was found Mound, near CWlUcothe, Ohio. 

 ,,. ,. „ ,, ,T CM T representing a cedar bird. 



in cultivation as lar north as the St. Law- 

 rence River. Indeed, one of the great tribes of North American 

 Indians, known as the " Tobacco Nation," inhabited nine villages 

 l^dng just south of Lake Huron. They took their name from the 

 fact that they cultivated tobacco on a large scale and sold it to other 

 tribes. ^ 



The important part played by tobacco in many ceremonies of the 

 North American Indians is too well known to need description in 

 this place. In the South tobacco smoking often accompanied the 

 ceremonial of the "black drink." At meetings of ambassadors, 

 councils of nations, treaties of peace, and the 

 reception of visitors, the calumet or pipe of 

 peace was invariably circulated. The accom- 

 panying illustration (fig. 3) represents the 

 stem of a ceremonial calumet, like that carried 

 by Marquette during his travels among the 

 Indians. In Virginia its cultivation was taken 

 ^ „ ^, . up on a large scale bv the colonists. 



Fig. 2. — Stone pipe in ^ ? i i' n i 



the form of a human Tobacco IS Undoubtedly the most important 

 head from the same lo- p^ift which America lias presented to the 



cality. *= , T 



world : 



No other visible and tangible product of Columbus's discovery has been so 

 universally diffused among all kinds and conditions of men, even to the remotest 

 nooks and corners of the habitable earth. Its serene and placid charm has 

 everywhere proved irresistible, although from the outset its use has been 

 frowned upon with an acerbity such as no other affair of hygiene has ever called 

 forth.. The first recorded mention of tobacco is in Columbus's diary for Novem- 

 ber 20, 1492 [Nov. 6, according to Navarrete]. The use of it was soon introduced 



1 It is interesting to note that in 1914 10,000,000 pounds of tobacco were produced in 

 the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario. 



