402 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [x.s., 23, 1921 



ern boundary of its aboriginal cultivation or use is, naturally, difficult 

 to determine with exactness, but is probably along the line of the 

 eastern boundary of the " Plains Area " as outlined by Wissler. 1 

 The use of this species, then, may be supposed to have extended over 

 the " Eastern Woodland Area " and the " Southeastern Area " of the 

 social groups of North American Indians as classified according to 

 their cultures. The evidence on which this supposition is based is 

 scanty, but reasonably convincing. In the first place, we know that 

 smoking was general over these culture areas and was held of impor 

 tance as a ceremony. In the second place, Strachey, about i6io, 2 

 speaks definitely of the flower of the tobacco of the Virginian Indians 

 as having a yellow color and otherwise as conforming to the descrip 

 tion of Nicotiana rustica. It is interesting to note here that the 

 Indian name for the Virginia tobacco was "Uppowoc," or, as 

 Strachey wrote it, " Apooke." In the third place, the Onondaga In 

 dians, center nation, fire-keepers, tobacco nation, and holders of the 

 responsibility of general referendum of the Five Nations or Iroquois, 

 still cultivate Nicotiana rustica as the " Sacred Tobacco " of their 

 confederacy. I have been able to grow plants from Onondaga seed 

 kindly furnished by Chief Cornplanter through Arthur C. Parker. 

 W. M. Beauchamp 3 mentions Nicotiana rustica as the species called 

 " O-yen-kwa-hon-we," and I have seen specimens of the Onondaga 

 plant provided by him in the Herbarium at the New York Botanical 

 Garden. The Iroquois tradition of the origin of the tobacco plant 

 is related by Arthur C. Parker. 4 As stated by Esquire Johnson, an 

 old Seneca chief, to Mrs. Asher Wright, the missionary, the squash 

 grew from the earth directly over Earth-Mother's navel, the beans 

 from that above her feet, and the tobacco-plant from that above her 

 head. " Thus," he added, " it soothes the mind and sobers thought." 

 In the fourth place, tobacco seed from the Winnebago Indians of 

 Minnesota, furnished by Dr. Melvin R. Gilmore, yielded Nicotiana 



1 Loc. cit., p. 207. 



2 Strachey, William, The Historic of Travaile into Virginia Brittania, 

 Hakluyt Society, London, pp. 121, 122, 1849. 



3 Onondaga Indian Names for Plants, Bull. Torrey Botan. Club, vol. 16, 



PP- 54, 55- 



4 Indian Uses of Maize and other Food Plants, Bull. No. 114, New York 

 State Museum, 1910, p. 37. 



