ANCIENT PIPES AND ANCIENT SMOKERS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XV, Issue 77, 24 December 1856, Page 3

ANCIENT PIPES AND ANCIENT SMOKERS.

[From the Illustrated London News."]

Some account of so wide-spread a practice as tobacco-smoking — for it may be said to prevail over the whole carth — cannot fail to be interesting. Availing ourselves of an elaborate work, recently published by a German author, we shall give a brief outline of the facts connected with its introduction into Europe, immediately after the discovery of the New World, with which great event in the world's history it is connected in a marked manner, When Christopher Columbus landed on the 12th of October, 1492, on the island of Guanhami, one of the western Lucca or Bahama Islands, to which he gave the name of San Salvador, he and his crew beheld, to their intense astonishment, a number of natives peaceably collected on the shore, puffing clouds of smoke from their mouths and nostrils. On closer inspection it was found that portions of some kind of dried herb were wrapped up in the leaves of the maize-plant, and formed into cylindrical rolls, one end of which was placed in the mouth, and the other being kindled, the smoke was drawn up and puffed forth. They were, in point of fact, what we should call cigarettes; but the name given to them by the natives was tobacco, which is clearly the origin of the name we give to the plant, and not, as has been asserted, the island Tobago, one of the southern Antilles, which was not discovered till 1496. Still less is the word derivable from Tabasco, a Mexican province, which was not visited until the year 1518. The narratives composed by the early travellers and sojourners in the newly-discovered regions of the Western World, a number of which have been recently brought to light, contain frequent allusions to the tobacco-plant, and to the practice of smoking prevalent among the natives. The first regular description of the tobacco -plant was given by the hermit-friar Romano Pane, whom Columbus left behind after his second voyage to convert the Indians to Christianity. He calls it a herha inebrians, and says it was called cohoba, cohobba, and gioia. He describes, moreover, a fork-shaped tube which the Indians introduced into their nostrils, while they held the other end over tobacco - leaves spread upon burning coals. They called this tube tobacco. The leaves in a green state, of the coleoba-plant, he adds, were extensively used as a vulnerarium by the Indians. The prevalence of the custom of smoking among the inhabitants of the West India islands at the period of their discovery is attested by the accounts of all the early navigators and explorers ; and the excellence of the tobocco grown in some of them, particularly Cuba and Trinidad, is the subject of remark. When the Antilles came into the possession of the French iv the middle of the seventeenth century, tobacco was extensively cultivated in them ; and Dv Tertre, in his account of these islands, describes four kinds of j the tobacco-plant: — 1. The large green tobacco, or petum, with leaves two feet in length and one broad. 2. Tongue tobacco, with tongue shaped leaves. 3. Amazon tobacco, brought from the borders of the Amazon river, the leaves of which are very long and rounded at the end. 4. Varinas tobacco (Tabac de Ferine, Petum Musque), brought from the province of Varinas and the banks of Assura. The West Indies, particularly the island of Cuba, to the present day afford the best tobacco, that possessing the finest aroma. According to Humboldt, the regions which produce the best quality lie westward of the city of Havanna, in the Vuelta de Abajo.

At the time of the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, in 1519, tabacco-smoking was an established custom among the natives ; and Francisco Lopez de Gotnara, who was chaplain to Cortez, relates that they used either the leaves rolled up into a cylinder, or pipes made from reeds and beautifully ornamented. These pipes and the whole practice of smoking are minutely described in a curious manuscript, recently brought to light, composed by the celebrated Franciscan, Bernardino Sahagan, who went over to Mexico as a preacher in 1529. The same kind of pipes are still in use in Mexico, though no longer for smoking tobacco, but for the purpose of perfuming the altars in churches with incense on feast-days. Montezuma, according to the account of Bernal Diaz, was accustomed to take his pipe after dinner ; it was brought in on the removal of the cloth by beautiful maidens, and handed to him after he had washed his mouth with scented water. Long before the discovery and conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, the Aztecs, and probably the Toltecs also, made use of tobacco pipes made of balled clay. A great number of such pipes have been dug up from the earth in the vicinity of the city of Mexico, and almost all are blackened from frequent use.

A drawing of one of these is given on the preceding page ; it represents, a human figure. The nether lip is slit, and the ears, which are stretched downwards, are bored. It is probably intended for an Indian of the tribe of Totocanos. - These clay pipes greatly resemble those so plentifully discovered in excavations on the shores of Lake Erie, on the banks of the Ohio and Wabash, and in the valley of the Mississipi. The Aztecs were acquainted with the use of tobacco in the form of snuff, and appear also to have chewed the leaves when mixed up with a certain quantity of chalk.

At the time of the discovery and conquest of Central America smoking was practised by the natives in Chiapa, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua — the caciques, no less than the common people, being passionately addicted to it. Hernandez de Oviedo, in the account of his voyage to Panama and Nicaragua, in 1526, states that tobacco was carefully cultivated there, and the leaves prepared into rolls six inches long, and the thickness of a fingrer, which were called in the language of country ympaquete. The English surgeon Wafer, who crossed the Isthmus of Darien with a company of buccaneers in 1651, and lived some time among the Indians, relates that boys puffed the smoke from long rolls of tobacco, from two to three feet in length, into the nostrils of the Indians, as they lay stretched upon a bank, and holding their hands on each side of their noses to retain the precious incense.

In short, throughout the whole of Mexico and Central America the nat"?.* tribes, at the

time of the first appearance of the Europeans'* among them, appear to have practised smoking. The Spaniards soon took to it, and at the present day the habit prevails among the whole population of these regions, male aud female, of Spanish or mixed origin. The old Mexican smoking pipe, however, has long given place to the modern puros — the 'tnple leaf rolled vp — and cigarros or papeletos, made of tobacto wrapped up in thiu paper. Large manufactories of these were soon ettablished, and rapidly became au important branch of industry. Father Joseph Odis, who Visited Mexico towards the middle of the last century, states that he saw 10,000 girls and 5,000 boys engaged in preparing little rolls of tobacco of about a finger's length. From all the accounts of modern travellers in Mexico and the provinces of Central America, we learn how universally the habit is indulged in by all classes, men and women. At all hours, and in all places, smoking goes on — in the office, the drawing-room, at the dinner table, and even at balls and theatres. On the subject of ladies smoking, Stephens, in his " Incidents of Travel in Central America," says : — "I am sorry to say that, generally, the ladies of Central America, not excepting Guatemala, smoke — married ladies, puros-, or all tobacco ; and unmarried, cigars, or tobacco wrapped in paper or straw. Every gentleman carries in his pocket a silver case, with a long string of cotton, steel and flintj and one of the offices of gallantry is to strike a light ; by doing it well, he may kindle a flame in a lady's heart ; at all events, to do it bunglingly would be ill bred. I will not express my sentiments on smoking as a custom for the sex. I have recollections of beauteous lips profaned. Nevertheless, even in this, I have seen a lady show her prettiness and refinement, barely touching the straw with her lips, as it were kissing it gently and taking it away. When a gentleman asks a lady for a light, she always removes the cigar from her lips."

The Spanish Government did not fail to take advantage of the great consumption of tobacco as a source of revenue. In 1764 a monopoly in the trade in tobacco was established under the name of Estaneo Real de Tobaco ; a license was required for its cultivation, and the produce was delivered to Government at a fixed price. For the better supervision of the plantations; the growth of tobacco was restricted within certain boundaries. In the time of Humboldt's visit it was confined to the valleys of Aragua and Cumenacoa ; and the only sort cultivated was that with broad upright leaves, Nicotiana Tabacum. The tobacco monopoly brought large sums of money to the Spanish Government. In bad years the net produce amounted to a million pesos ; and in good to two and a half and more. In the great cigar manufactory of Oaraca 5,000,000 packets of paper cigars of 30 each were made yearly, and 60,000 packets of puros of seven each, producing yearly 316,000 pesos.

As regards South America, except in Brazil and in the province of Guiana, none of the natives inhabiting its various regions appear to have been acquainted with the use of tobacco 1 until it was introduced by the Spaniards. In Guiana, however, at the time of Sir Walter Raleigh's voyage to the Orinoco, in search of El Dorado, tobacco appears to have been cultivated, and the custom of smoking generally prevalent among the natives, who were called Caribbees. The first accounts of tobacco in Brazil occur in the narrative of a Carmelite monk, Andre Thevet, who accompanied the expedition of Nicolas Curant de Villegagnon to form a settlement on the River Gauabra, in 1555.

In North America the practice of smoking tobacco iv pipes existed among all the tribes of native Indians when they were first brought in contact with Europeans ; and there is every reason to believe that it originated among the ancient nations of which the Wild Indians, as they are called, are the scattered remnants. At any rate, the practice was extremely ancient among them, as is testified by the abundance of pipes found in the old graves and tumuli in the regions bordering the Cauadian seas, and in those watered by the Ohio, Scioto, Wabasb, Miami, and Mississippi, as well as in the statesof Tennesee, Alabama, and Florida. The great antiquity of some of these tumuli in which pipes were found is attested by the fact of colossal trees having grown upon them, which, from the number of rings exhibited by thetrunk, must be several centuries old. Theseold pipes are made, some of baked clay, and. some of different kinds of stone,, talc, serpentine, greenstone, steatite, and a particular species of stone known as red pipe-stone, which is still: used by the Indians of the prairies, of the' Upper Mississippi, and of the Sioux country. They are for the most part manufactured with* great skill, and exhibit considerable taste and v artistic feeling. Every variety of shape is to' be seen among them — human heads, wild-cats, seals, otters, bears, falcons, owls, frogs,. &c, ;■ and all are delineated with so much fidelity to' nature that they may be recognised at once.A very remarkable circumstance about those" representing human heads is, that the type approximates very closely to the Mongolian, which goes some way to bear out the opinion . of those ethnologists who suppose America to have been peopled by migrations from the eastern part of Asia. The narratives of all the first discoverers and explores of North America contain some mention of the tobacco-smoking^ of the natives, and show the practice to Kave been universal among all the numerous tribes inhabiting that vast continent. Thomas Hariot, who was Sir Walter Raleigh's instructor hr mathematics, and joined the expedition fitted out in 1584 by Sir Walter, with Queen Elizabeth's consent, and which resulted in the discovery of Virginia, gives in the accouut of his voyage published by him a very full description of the practice. He states "that the natives considered tobacco as a gift of the Great Spimflfor their especial enjoyment, aud thajL.te*«Sß r the most acceptable sacrifice that^ gsjT^ j, c made to the [Great Spirit and t^ ot « Life. They even believed smo^^ fopm QUe of the pleasures of the Grea; c Spirit, and of all good spirits.

One of the most corious and remarkable points connected with the religious and spiritual side of tobacco-smoking, as regarded by the natives, is the ceremonial of the calumet or pipe of peace, which first came to the knowledge of Europeans in 1 615, when Montmagny, a knisht of Malta, and Governor nf Can* a* „ — "i-l.i

a commercial treaty with the native tribes of the Algonquins, Moutagnez, Hurons, and Cherokees. In the midst of the assembly the Indians had planted a richly-ornamented tobacco-pipe, round which the chiefs seated themselves, on their mats. After the conclusion of the treaty they smoked this pipe, handing it round among themselves, and to the Governer, in ratification of the treaty, and as a token of their friendly disposition. This custom appears, from the accounts of all early travellers, to have been as universal among the Indian tribes of North America as the habit of smoking itself. It is particularly described in great detail by Ilenepin, a Franciscan monk, who, with De la Salle, travelled across the Canadian lakes and up the Illinois to the Mississippi ; then, following the course of the Mississippi, reached the Gulf of Mexico, in the name of France took possession of the land which borders it, and called it Louisiana. The Jesuit father, Charleroix, who crossed vast tracts of the Indian country in the early pare of the last century, also gives many interesting facts on the subject. They both agree in ascribing a religious character to the calumet, and connecting it with the worship of the sun. Marquete, another early traveller and missionaiy, finds some analogy between the calumet and the caduceus of Mercury, which was also a symbol of peace and of friendly embassies, and was borne by priests and soothsayers, who were called fire-bearers, from bringing with them an altar with the sacred fire. The pipe of peace and the ceremonies connected with it still continue in use among the wild tribes of North America. It is about four or five feet long, of light wood, and profusely ornamented with ribbons, tresses of women's hair, strings of coral beads and feathers, particularly those of the war-eagle. The women of the tribe feel themselves particularly bound to make the calumet as handsome and showy as possible, and each tribe adorns its pipe of peace in its own way, so that an Indian can tell at a glance to whicn tribe any calumet belongs. The bowl of the pipe is usually made of the red pipestone, a peculiar stone brought from one particular spot; called the Coteau of the Prairies, in the Sioux country. There are a variety of legends connected with the mountain from which the red pipe-stone is obtained ; one of these is, that once upon a time the Great Spirit called all the tribes together round this mountain, and, standing on its summit, took a piece of the red-stone, formed a pipe from it, and •began to smoke, blowing huge clouds over the assembled multitude. The Great Spirit then spoke, saying — " This stone is red, it is your flesh, that belongs to you all. Out of it make no more tomahawks, war-hatchets, nor scalpingknives. Use it only to make the pipe of peace with, and smoke therefrom when you would ■propitiate me and do my will." At the last puff of his pipe the Great Spirit melted into a cloud, which long hovered over the assembled

Spain was the first country in Europe into which tobacco-smoking was introduced by the crews of vessels returning from the New World. The tobacco-plant itself, however, was known at an earlier period than the practice of smoking — the seeds having been brought over by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo. Its medical virtues as a vulnerarium were much vaunted by Nicolo Monardes, professor of medicine at the University of Seville, and others ; and Jean Nicot, French Ambassador at Lisbon in 1560, introduced it into France, having previously performed many wonderful cures of sores and wounds with it. To him it owes its scientific name of nicotia. Once the custom of smoking was introduced, it soon spread throughout Spain and Portugal, and is at the present day universal among all classes, from the noble to the peasant. The introduction of tobacco into England is variously attributed to Sir Thomas Hawkins, on his return from Florida in 1565 ; to Sir Walter Raleigh, after his expedition to 'the Oronoko ; and to Sir Francis Drake, who, in 1586, brought back some of the companions of Ralph Lane, who had attempted to form a settlement in Virginia, and in their intercourse with the Indians had adopted the habit of smoking. After first creating wonder and exciting curiosity it gradually found imitators, as everything new and strange and calculated to attract attention is sure to do. Sir Walter Raleigh, who was passionately addicted to it, seems to have contributed most by his eminent example to give a vogue to the practice. The old story of his servant believing him to be on fire need not be repeated here. So inveterate was the habit with the gallant old sailor, that even on the morning of his execution he is said to have smoked his pipe with the same apparent enjoyment as ever. In London the practice of smoking soon made rapid strides, and smokers assembled in large parties at the beershops and taverns. The trade in tobacco, which was brought from Cuba and Trinidad, and other Spanish settlements, soon acquired considerable importance ; the shops in which tobacco was sold were soon distinguished by the figure of a negro with a roll of tobacco at his side.

Towards the end of the seventeenth, century tobacco-smokers were to be found in every corner of the land, and among all classes. The custom was first brought upon the stage by Ben Jonson, in Every Man in His Humour, in which Captain Bobadil appears smoking a pipe in company with others addicted to the same practice, and who are contemptuously styled in the stage direction " a rout of stinkards." Bobadil is made to break out into the following highflown panegyric of the weed : — " Sir, believe me . on my relation, for what I tell you the world • shall not reprove. I have been in the Indies, where this herb grows, and where neithermyself nor a dozen gentlemen more, of my knowledge, have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world for the space of nine-and-twenty weeks but the fume of this simple only. Therefore, it cannot be but .it is most divine, especially your Trinidado. Your Nicotian is good, toof: Ido hold it, and will affirm it before any prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and most precious weed that ever the earth tendered to the use of man."