THOMAS! SIMILARITY OF SMOKING HABITS. (>87 



Pipes awl tobacco. — That the raouud-builders were great smokers is 

 proven by the very large number of pipes which have been found in 

 their mounds and graves. So numerous are these and so widely dis- 

 tributed over the mound area east of the Kooky mountains that pipe- 

 making and pipe-smoking may be taken as a marked cbaracteristic of 

 tins ancient peo])le. Moreover the fact that smoking the pipe prevailed 

 to a greater or less extent over this entire area indicates that the mound- 

 building age was continuous. 



That the pipe was an essential to Indian happiness is too well known 

 to need any proof here. We have therefore in the evidence of the very 

 general use of the pipe among the mound-builders one proof that they 

 were Indians in the limited sense mentioned. At any rate it furnislies 

 one reason for concluding that they were not directly connected with the 

 Nahua tribes of Mexico or the Maya-Quiche tribes of Central America. 

 The pipe was not an article in general use among either the Nahua or 

 Maya nations; not a single one appears to be rep'esented in their 

 ancient maimscriiits or paintings or their carved inscriptions; the cigar 

 is represented, but no pipe. According to Bancroft, " The habit of smok- 

 ing did not possess among the Nahuas the peculiar character attached 

 to it by the Nortli American natives, as an indispensable accessory to 

 treaties, the cementing of friendship, and so forth, but was indulged 

 in chiefly by the sick as a pastime, and for its stimulating effect." 

 ■'Tobacco,'' he adds, "was generally smoked after dinner, in the form 

 of paper, reed, or maize-leaf cigarettes, called pocyetl, ' smoking tobacco,' 

 or acayctl, -tobacco-reed,' 'the leaf being mixed in a paste,' says Vey- 

 tia, 'with xochiocotzotl. liquidambar, aromatic herbs, and pulverized 

 charcoal, so as to keep smoldering when once lighted and shed a per- 

 fume."" 



Tliis appears, so far as my examinations have extended, to corre- 

 spond with what is stated by the older authorities, or, perhaps, it would 

 1)6 more correct to say, with what they do not state, as but very little 

 is said upon the subject which is corroborative, for, had the pipe been 

 in use among the Nahuas and Mayas, as it was among the Indians and 

 mound-builders, it would have had a prominent place in their paintings, 

 manuscripts, and sculpture, and the old S])anish authors would Lave 

 had much to say in regard to it. The museum at Mexico does not con- 

 tain above half a dozen pipes with bowls. 



This fact is certainly one argument against the theory that the 

 mound-builders of the Mississippi valley were Aztecs or Mayas, and 

 what strengthens it is that the ancient stone i)ipes of the Pacific slope, 

 especially of southern California, are of an entirely different type ftom 

 those of the mounds east of the Rocky mountains, the prevailing form 

 being a flattened tube, as may be seen by reference to Vol. vii of Lieut. 

 Wheeler's Survey. 



' Native Races, ii, 287. 



