[Reurmted from the AMKRION ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 23, No. 4, Oct.-Dec.. 1921.] 



ABORIGINAL TOBACCOS 

 BY WILLIAM ALBERT SETCHELL 



ACCORDING to De Candolle in his Origin of Cultivated Plants* 

 somewhat over forty of the plants now generally cultivated 

 came from the Americas, some of them having been intro 

 duced into Europe very soon after the discovery of the " new conti 

 nent " by Columbus. This has been regarded as being true particu 

 larly of maize, potatoes, and tobacco. There have nqt been wanting 

 claims as to other origins for many of these supposedly American 

 cultivated plants and the tobaccos have frequently been under sus 

 picion. The most careful investigations, however, have tended only 

 to confirm the idea of the non-existence of any species of tobacco 

 used for smoking, snuffing, or chewing outside the confines of the 

 American continents. The latest writer to claim a non-American 

 origin for tobacco, as well as certain other cultivated plants of sup 

 posedly American origin, is Leo Wiener. 2 Professor Wiener de 

 votes ninety pages of his book to a consideration of tobacco, chiefly 

 from the point of view of its various names. His conclusions appear 

 to be that the cultivated tobacco originated in Africa and was intro 

 duced thence into the Americas by Negro slaves imported by the 

 Spaniards. The linguistic evidence brought forward by Professor 

 Wiener seems to one unacquainted with the value of such evidence as 

 to origins and migrations of peoples, plants, etc., to be far-fetched and 



i Origin of Cultivated Plants, in Internal. Sci. Series, vol. 48, New York, 

 1885. 



-Africa and the Discovery of America, vol. i, Philadelphia, 1920. 

 26 397 



