How the Esquimaux Use Tobacco.

Otago Witness, Issue 2086, 15 February 1894, Page 49

How the Esquimaux Use Tobacco.

Perhaps there is nothing more peculiar about the Esquimaux than their methods of using tobacco, which, of course, they procure from the whites. They know good from bad tobacco. The habit of chewing the weed seems to be universal. Men, women, and even children keep a quid, often of enormous size, constantly in the mouth. These people, for the sake of making their tobacco go further, cut it up very fine and mix it with finely-chopped wood, in the proportion of about two parts of tobacco to one of wood. Willow twigs are commonly used for this purpose, possibly because they have a slightly aromatic flavour. The mode of smoking the weed thus prepared is very odd The smoker, after clearing out the bowl of bis pipe with a little picker or bone, plucks from his deerskin clothing in some conspicuous place a small wad of hair. This he rams down to the bottom of the bowl, the purpose of it being to prevent the fine tobacco from getting into the stem and clogging it up. The pipe is then filled with tobacco, of which it only holds a very small quantity. The tobacco is then ignited, and all of it is smoked out in two or three strong whiffe. The smoke is very deeply inhaled, and is allowed to pass out Blowly from the mouth and nostrils.

This method of smoking would be found exceedingly trying by any white man — in fact, it usually brings tears to the eyes of the Esquimaux, often producing giddiness, and almost

always a violent fit of coughing. A native will sometimes be almost prostrated from tjhe effects of a single pipeful. They also eat the tobacco ashes, perhaps for the sake of the potash they contain.