THE CEREMONIAL USE OF TOBACCO. 181 



humago que los indios usan chupar ; y amagavan con cada uno 

 dellos nueve vezes a cado mochacho, y despues davanle a oler las 

 flores y a chupar el humago." That this is not an isolated instance 

 of the use of tobacco in religious practices in these regions is 

 shown by the pipes and cigars pictured in some of the ancient 

 manuscripts. Bancroft states that after some of the hideous 

 human sacrifices made by the people of Central America, great 

 fires were built, into which the men threw pipes, among other 

 offerings. Among the remarkable sculptures of the " Palace of 

 the Sun," at Palenque, occurs the figure of a priest dressed in a 

 leopard's skin, a complicated head dress, and rufiies around his 

 wrists and ankles. In his mouth, supported by both hands, is a 

 tubular pipe, similar in shape and decoration to many that have 

 been found in California and in other parts of the United States. 

 In this figure the learned Dr. Hamy sees, and doubtless correctly, 

 the performance of an act of worship. He says : " Le pontif e soufiie 

 en Thonneur du Dieu dont 1'image est sculpte'e au fond de la 

 chapelle une large bouftMe de tabac," and proceeds to trace the 

 analogies which exist between this practice of the builders of 

 Palenque and the rites of the mound-builders and California In- 

 dians, of whose tubular pipes he says : " Elles servent a soufiler 

 une fume'e consacre'e, dans certaines ce're'rnonies religieuses, et le 

 medicine-man sait, suivant les besoins, les transformer soit en 

 tubes a ventouse, soit en porte-moxa." 



The treatment of disease by means of tobacco and tobacco 

 pipes, which is here suggested, may now claim attention. The 

 " sucking cure," in which the medicine-man or sorcerer applies to 

 the patient's body a tube of stone or bone and pretends to extract 

 through it some small object, such as a stick or stone, is of world- 

 wide distribution. In America the tube used is frequently the 

 tobacco pipe, sometimes empty, and sometimes filled with burn- 

 ing tobacco. Vanegas, an early historian of California, asserts 

 that stone tubes sometimes filled with lighted tobacco were often 

 applied to the suffering part of the patient's body. Forbes states 

 that in the same region, in 1728, Father Luyanto, of the Loreto 

 Mission, " as a preliminary to baptism insisted on the abjuration 

 of faith in the native jugglers or priests, and demanded the break- 

 ing and burning of their smoking tubes and other instruments 

 and tokens of superstition in proof of this." Among the modern 

 Apaches the medicine-man's diagnosis of a case is made by the 

 pretended swallowing of a pipe filled with burning tobacco. It 

 works out of his arm or leg, and if white the patient will recover ; 

 if colored, he is likely to die. Tubular pipes occur in many parts 

 of the United States, and in California they are numerous. While 

 they were designed primarily as smoking implements, they were 

 no doubt often used, as here indicated, in the treatment of disease. 



