: Use of tobacco among North American Indians by Linton Ralph - Tobacco pipes; Indians of North America Tobacco use

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bes of the western Plains who raised no food crops, cultivated small patches of tobacco for ceremonial use. The ground was cleared of weeds and grass, and the seed planted in holes about two inches deep, made with a pointed stick. The gardens were weeded from time to time, but do not seem to have been regularly cultivated. In both tribes tobacco culture was attended by elaborate ceremonies. Among the Crow it was in the hands of a society which also played an important part in the social life of the tribe. The right to plant tobacco was considered a special privilege which could be obtained only through a revelation from some supernatural being or through adoption by a person who had received such a revelation. The adopted person could, in turn, adopt others. Any person might receive such a revelation, and the society was composed of a number of divisions or chapters which derived their right to plant from different revelations and differed in their songs and in details of their ceremonies. Within the chapter there were certain rights, such as that of mixing seed before planting, which could only be acquired by purchase. Both men and women were eligible to membership, and the society held assemblages for dancing throughout the year.

Some of the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains also cultivated tobacco, although there is little information on their methods. On the Columbia River and in northern California a stump or fallen log was burned, and the tobacco seed scattered in the ashes.

Most of the North American Indians mixed their tobacco with other herbs before smoking it. Among the more northern tribes, especially those who did not raise tobacco themselves, this was done partly through motives of economy, but the mixture was also designed to improve the flavor, as in our own commercial blends. The favorite smoke of the tribes of the eastern United States and Canada was called kinnikinnick, from an Algonquian word meaning "that which is mixed." Each tribe had its own formula for this mixture, but it usually consisted of tobacco, sumac leaves, and the inner bark of a species of dogwood. The bark and leaves of a number of other plants were sometimes added or substituted. A little oil was usually added to the mixture to bind the dust, which would otherwise irritate the smoker's throat and clog the pipe. Kinnikinnick was milder than pure tobacco, and was preferred by most Indians and by many white hunters and settlers. The Pueblo Indians of the Southwest smoked various mixtures of tobacco and herbs in their religious ceremonies. The greatest care was used in compounding these ceremonial mixtures, and the plants were valued largely according to the distance from which they came. The California Indians diluted their tobacco with manzanita leaves or mixed it with Jamestown weed, itself a powerful narcotic. The choicest smoking mixture of the ancient Mexicans was made from tobacco and the gum of the liquidambar tree.

Three main methods of smoking were used by the American aborigines. The natives of northern and central South America and the West Indies were cigar smokers. The Central Americans and Mexicans were predominantly cigarette smokers, although some of the ancient Mexicans also used pipes. The North American Indians, with the exception of the Pueblo tribes of the Southwest, were exclusively pipe-smokers. The distribution of these three methods in America has strongly influenced European smoking customs. The Mediterranean nations, who learned the use of tobacco from cigar and cigarette using Indians, still prefer to smoke it in these forms. The English, who came in contact with the pipe-smoking Indians of the eastern United States are still predominantly pipe-smokers. The custom of cigarette-smoking did not become general in northern Europe and the United States until quite recent times, and the vigorous opposition which it has met here seems to be due quite as much to its novelty as to any proved injurious effects.

Aboriginal cigars were practically identical with those now in use and were smoked in the same way.

The aboriginal cigarette was made with a corn-husk wrapper and contained much less tobacco than the modern commercial variety. It is still in use throughout most of Mexico and Central America and among the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern United States. Archaeological finds prove that the southwestern tribes smoked pipes or reed cigarettes in ancient times, and the corn-husk cigarette may have been introduced from Mexico during the early historic period. In recent times the spread of the Peyote cult, which originated in the southwestern Plains, has carried the corn-husk cigarette to many northern tribes who were unfamiliar with it even a generation ago. The Mexicans and Pueblo Indians also smoked reed cigarettes in ancient times, and the Hopi form may be taken as typical. It consisted of a small reed, not over two and a half inches long, packed with powdered tobacco. A band of some fabric was usually bound around the reed, leaving a flap hanging down by which it was held. Hundreds of the charred butts of such cigarettes have been found in the prehistoric ruins of the Southwest, but they are lacking in the lower archaeological levels, and the earliest inhabitants of the region were probably pipe and not cigarette smokers.

The Dakota say that they did not use pipes in ancient times, but smoked their tobacco in a hole in the ground. A similar method was used by the Cree as a makeshift. Hind says, "I asked the Indian what he would do for a smoke until he had finished the new pipe. He arose and walking to the edge of the swamp cut four reeds, and joined some pieces together. After he had made a hole through the joints, he gently pushed one extremity in a slanting direction into the earth, which he had previously made firm by pressure with his foot. He then cut out a small hole in the clay, above the extremity of the reed, and molding it with his fingers, laughingly said: 'Now give me tobacco, and I will show you how to smoke it.' He then filled the hole with a mixture of tobacco and bearberry, placed a live coal on the top, and stretching himself at full length on the ground, with his chin supported by both hands, he took the reed between his lips and enjoyed a long smoke."

Indian pipes were of two main types,--straight pipes, in which the tobacco cavity and stem were in the same plane, as in a modern cigar holder, and elbow pipes, in which the bowl was inclined upward. The straight pipe was known throughout practically the whole of America north of Mexico, but was rare in the eastern United States. It was used to the practical exclusion of all other forms in the southwestern United States and on the Pacific coast. The elaborately decorated smoking tubes of the Mexicans, mentioned by early Spanish writers, may have been straight pipes, but many of them were probably cane cigarettes. The elbow pipe was the dominant form in the eastern United States and Great Plains, and also in eastern and southern South America. It was used to a limited extent by the prehistoric Mexicans and in southern California, and was not unknown in the Southwest. In historic times it has come into use in British Columbia and Alaska, regions in which tobacco was not originally smoked.

The earliest pipes which can be even approximately dated are those of the Basket Makers, a people who lived in the southwestern United States in ancient times. Their remains are found below those of the Cliff Dwellers, and evidence along several lines indicates that they were living in the region by the beginning of the Christian era and had been absorbed or driven out by ~A.D.~ 1000. A number of their pipes have been found. They are of the straight type and are usually quite small, short, and heavy, with separate stems about two inches long . The bowls are made of stone, unbaked clay, or, rarely, wood; and the stems of wood or bird-bone. The stems are attached with pitch. Many of these pipes are heavily caked, and they were probably used for personal as well as ceremonial smoking. It is impossible to tell whether the Basket Makers used tobacco in these pipes and analyses of the cake have yielded only negative results. If they did use tobacco, it was probably the wild native species .

The Cliff Dwellers and ancient Pueblo tribes who succeeded the Basket Makers used straight pipes of a somewhat different type. They were usually longer and more slender than the Basket Maker pipes with somewhat thinner walls. The smaller examples, which were probably intended for personal use, seem to have had separate stems . Large tubular pipes, shaped like half a cigar, are also found, but were probably used only in ceremonial smoking. They are made of clay or soft stone and often show beautiful workmanship . Roughly made clay pipes of this sort, popularly known as "cloud blowers," are still used by the Hopi in their ceremonies.

The California Indians, with the exception of the Diegue?o, also used the straight pipe, and the form is probably as ancient there as in the Southwest. There were various tribal and regional differences in the shape and material. Wooden pipes without separate stems were of nearly universal occurrence, and were probably the earliest form. In some regions they were carved and inlaid with abalone shell. Pipes of unbaked clay with wooden stems were used in a few localities , but the finest California pipes were made of steatite or soapstone . They were usually provided with short mouthpieces of wood or bone. The Hupa of northern California used a pipe with a small steatite bowl accurately fitted into a cavity in the end of a long tapering wooden stem .

Several of the tribes of the Great Plains used straight pipes in ancient times. These pipes were made from the leg bone of an antelope wrapped with sinew at the bowl end . In some cases the whole pipe was covered with rawhide or membrane. The Arapaho say that they used this form exclusively in early times, and the sacred pipe of the tribe is straight with a black stone bowl and a long tubular wooden stem. A pipe of the same form, but with a red stone bowl, was used by the Cheyenne in their Sun Dance, and the Crow have made straight stone pipe bowls until quite recent times .

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