768 



TOBACCO 



[B. A. E. 



employed the word to designate the in- 

 strument in which the plant was smoked, 

 rather than the plant itself. In early 

 French narratives of Canada the word 

 petu7i is almost always used. This term 

 is of Tupi origin and is still found 

 among the dialects of that language in 

 Brazil under the forms pety, petim, 

 petun, petin, pitima, petume,petemma, etc., 

 whereas the word "tobacco" appears to 

 be traceable to the Carib word taue, tawe, 

 touica, tamoui, etc., and the Chibcha 

 dua, duva, daiva, etc., the differences 

 being merely dialectic. The word sic, 

 sii'c, zig, sicUtl, etc., is often employed by 

 the Maya of Yucatan to designate the 

 cigar, although this people has other 

 words for tobacco, as tnai and kutz. In 

 all the Indian languages of North and 

 South America words are found to desig- 

 nate the tobacco plant, and in the lan- 

 guages of the northern tribes especially 

 there are commonly two words for to- 

 bacco, probably referring to different 

 varieties of Nicotiana. 



Nadaillac says that the tobacco plant 

 was introduced into Europe by the Span- 

 iards as early as 1518. Diego Columbus, 

 in his will dated May 2, 1523, made a 

 legacy to a tobacco merchant of Lisbon, 

 showing how rapidly traffic in the new 

 panacea sprang up. Jean Nicot, French 

 ambassador to the King of Portugal, sent 

 seeds of the plant to Catherine de Medici 

 about 1559, a service commemorated by 

 the name NtcotUiii<i. given to the plant. 

 As many as 40 varieties of the tobacco 

 plant have been noted by botanists. It 

 was called by the French "herbe de la 

 reine" and " herbe sainte"; by the Dutch 

 "the ambassador's plant"; the Spaniards 

 called it " yerba sancta" because of its 

 wonderful virtue in treating disease, 

 which Oviedo (Purchas, Pilgrimage, v, 

 957, 1626) said "was not only for sanity 

 but for sanctity also." The Portuguese 

 called it ' ' erba santa croce. ' ' Sir Francis 

 Drake referred to tobah as early as 1578, 

 and was the first to take Virginia tobacco 

 {Nicotiana tahamm) to Europe, according 

 to Fairholt. The cigarette has been 

 smoked in the S. W. from time imme- 

 morial, and the sacred cigarette deposited 

 by priests in caves as a votive offering, 

 thousands being found in cave shrines in 

 Arizona. 



The practice of making cane cigarettes 

 survived up to a recent period among the 

 Pima of Arizona, who, before going to 

 war against the Apache, made from a 

 reed growing along the Rio Gila a smok- 

 ing tube the length of the first two joints 

 of the index finger, around the middle of 

 which was tied a miniature belt woven 

 from cotton and agave fiber, with fringed 

 ends, and called a blanket, this clothed 

 reed being regarded as male or female 



according to certain marks upon it. Be- 

 fore the departure of a war party these 

 tubes were charged with tobacco and 

 smoked toward the cardinal points, to the 

 fetishes, and to all the objects that were 

 to be used in the campaign, each warrior 

 smoking his own tube. At the close of 

 the ceremony the tubes were deposited as 

 offerings in shrines dedicated to the War 

 god, which were generally in caves. 

 Fewkes in 1907 found in one of six 

 ceremonial rooms excavated by him at 

 Casa Grande, Ariz., hundreds of these 

 tubes in the fireplaces. Their surfaces 

 were charred, but they were still distin- 

 guishable. Large numbers of similar 

 tubes were found by Gushing in ceremo- 

 nial caves in the Gila and Salt r. valleys. 



In South America tobacco appears to 

 have been used chiefly in the form of snuff. 

 There is some evidence that the plant 

 was chewed in Central America. The In- 

 dians of North America generally are said 

 to have cultivated tobacco from a very 

 early period, several varieties of which 

 were known to them. The Tionontati, 

 because they grew the plant in commer- 

 cial quantities, were called by the French 

 Nation de Petun. 



Tobacco was cultivated in most tribes 

 by the men alone, and was usually smoked 

 by them only; among the Iroquois and 

 some of the Pueblos trade tobacco was 

 not smoked in solemn ceremonies. At 

 times both priests and laymen smoked 

 plants or compounds that were strongly 

 narcotic, those using them becoming 

 ecstatic and seeing visions. To the In- 

 dian the tobacco plant had a sacred 

 character; it was almost invariably used 

 on solemn occasions, accompanied by 

 suitable invocations to their deities. It 

 was ceremonially used to aid in disease 

 or distress, to ward off danger, to bring 

 good fortune, to generally assist one in 

 need, and to allav fear. The planting of 

 medicine tobacco is one of the oldest cere- 

 monies of the Crows, consisting, among 

 other observances, of a solemn march, a 

 foot race among the young men, the 

 planting of seed, the building of a hedge 

 of green branches around the seed bed, 

 a visit to the sweat house, followed by a 

 bath and a solemn smoke, all ending with 

 a feast; when ripe, the plant was stored 

 away, and seeds were put in a deerskin 

 pouch and kept for another planting 

 (Simms in Am. Anthr., vi, 331, 1904). 

 The Mandan and Arikara, among others, 

 are known to have cultivated tobacco 

 from very early time, while the Siksika, 

 essentially a hunting tribe, cultivated 

 tobacco, according to Grinnell, as their 

 only crop. The tobacco plant was care- 

 fully dried by the Indians and kept as 

 free from moisture as possible; that in- 

 tended for immediate use was kept in 



