BULL. 30] 



TOBACCO 



767 



Ta-apkuk.— Petroff in 10th Census, Alaska, 4, 1884. 

 Tapkhak.— Zagoskin in Nouv. Ann. Voy., 6th s., 

 XXI, map. 1850. Tarpkarzoomete. — Jack.son, Rein- 

 deer in Alaska, map, 145, 1894. Toapkuk.— Nelson 

 in 18th Rep. B. A. E., map, 1899. 



Tobacco. On the arrival of the first 

 Europeans in North America the natives 

 were observed to make offerings of the 

 smoke of some plant, generally believed 

 to be tobacco, to their many deities and 

 spirits; by it disease was treated, and the 

 smoke ascending from the pipe was re- 

 garded as an evidence of such an act as the 

 sealing of an agreement or the binding of a 

 treaty. Tobacco was likewise offered in 

 propitiation of angry waters, to allay de- 

 structive winds, anti to protect the trav- 

 eler. Oviedo (Hist, de las Indias, i, 130, 

 1851) says that the Indians of Hayti in 

 the 16th century "had the custom of 

 taking fumigations for the purpose of get- 

 ting intoxicated (which they call tahaco) 

 with the smoke of a certain herb." Ernst 

 (Am. Anthr., ii, 133, 1889) states that 

 Oviedo is certainly right in giving the 

 name (strictly tabora, a word of Guarani 

 origin) to a Y-shaped inhaler still used by 

 several South American tribes for the 

 absorption of certain powders {niopo, 

 parica). Columbus, on Oct. 15, 1492, 

 met a man in a canoe going from Santa 

 Maria to Fernandina, the second and third 

 of the Bahama ids. that he touched, who 

 was carrying dry leaves which he thought 

 must be appreciated among the Indians 

 because they had brought him some at 

 San Salvador. Las Casas (Hist. Gen. de 

 las Indias, cap. 46, 1875-76) says that 

 messengers whom Columbus sent ashore 

 in Cuba found "men with half-burned 

 wood in their hands and certain herbs to 

 take their smokes, which are some dry 

 herbs put in a certain leaf, also dry, like 

 those the boys make on the day of the 

 Passover of the Holy Ghost; and having 

 lighted one part of it, by the other they 

 suck, absorb, or receive that smoke in- 

 side with the breath, V)y which they be- 

 come benumbed and almost drunk, and so 

 it is said they do not feel fatigue. These, 

 muskets as we will call them, they call 

 tabacos. I knew Spaniards on this island 

 of Espaiiola who were accustomed to take 

 it, and being reprimanded for it, by tell- 

 ing them it was a vice, they replied they 

 were unable to cease using it. I do not 

 know what relish or benefit they found in 

 it." Navarrete says: "Such is the origin 

 of our cigars" (Thatcher, Columbus, i, 

 561, 1903). These authors are among the 

 first to refer to tobacco, the use of which 

 spread rapidlv over the world. Benzoni 

 (Hist. New VVorld, Hakluyt. Soc. Pub., 

 80, 1857) in 1541-56 tells how slaves 

 brought to America from p]thiopia by 

 the Spaniards preserved the leaves of a 

 plant that grows in these new countries, 

 which was picked in its season, tied up in 

 bundles, and suspended by them near 



their fireplaces until dry; to use them 

 they take a leaf of their grain (maize), 

 and one of the other plant being put in 

 it, they roll them tight together. So 

 much, he says, "do they fill themselves 

 with this cruel smoke that they lose their 

 reason" and "fall down as if they were 

 dead, and remaizi the greater part of the 

 day or night stupefied," though others 

 "are content with imbibing only enough 

 of this smoke to make them giddy, and 

 no more." This author says that in 

 Mexico the name of the herb itself was 

 tobacco. 



There is some question as to the uses 

 to which tobacco was put in the West 

 Indies, in South America, and in parts of 

 southern Central America. In all of these 

 sections there were names for the plant 

 itself, and in most of these regions cigars 

 or cigarettes were in common use, but the 

 tobacco pipe appears to have been un- 

 known until recent times. In 1540 Her- 

 nando Alarcon (Ternaux-Compans, Voy., 

 IX, 322, 1838) described the natives on 

 the lower Rio Colorado as carrying "small 

 reed tubes for making perfumes, as do the 

 Indian tabagos of New Spain." 



Nicolas Monardes (De Simplicibus 

 Medicamentis, 1574) called the plant 

 "tobacco," as did other authors of the 

 period. It was credited with wonderful 

 properties, curing not only disease but 

 wounds. It was extolled as an intoxi- 

 cant and as a preventive of hunger and 

 thirst, and was said to invigorate the 

 weary and to ward off disease. The 

 Mexicans called the plant yetl, the Peru- 

 vians .soyn'. Hariot (Narr. of Va., repr. 

 1893) said in 1585: "There is an herbe 

 which is sowed a part by it selfe, & is 

 called by the inhabitants Vppowoc: In 

 the West Indies it hath diners names, ac- 

 cording to the seuerall places & countries 

 where it groweth and is vsed. The Span- 

 iardes generally call it Tobacco. The 

 leaues thereof being dried and brought 

 into powder: they vse to take the fume 

 or smoke thereof by sucking it through 

 pipes made of claie into their stomacke 

 andheade; from whence in purgeth su- 

 perfiuous fleame & other grosse humors, 

 openeth all the pores & passages of the 

 body: by which meanes the vse thereof 

 not only preserueth the body from ob- 

 structions; but also if an}' be, so that they 

 haue not beene of too long continuance, 

 in short time breaketh them: wherby 

 their bodies are notably preserued in 

 health, know not many greeuous dis- 

 eases wherewithal! wee in England are 

 oftentimes afflicted." 



The word tobacco is of American origin, 

 and has been adopted, with slight varia- 

 tion, into most foreign languages to 

 designate the j>lant now smoked through- 

 out the world, although there is evi- 

 dence that the early Spanish settlers 



