HISTORY OF TOBACCO.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15887, 27 July 1923, Page 6

HISTORY OF TOBACCO.

“ PREHISTORIC ” SMOKES. The history of tobacco and the part it has played in civilisation have heretofore always begun with the discovery of America. It is now possible (says the New York Journal) to trace it back for a thousand years or more before the appearance of white men on the American continent. Tobacco played a far more important part in prehistoric times than in our own era. The pipe took the place of the family crest. It was elaborately carved with pictures of the battles and conquests of its owner or his tribe, 'so that now it is invaluable as a written history of the period. In the classic period of the pipe, as it may be called, tobacco played a very important part in civilisation. The importance of the pipe of peace, which confirmed countless treaties, is familiar. Raising tobacco to keep these pipes alight became an important industry, and determined the migration of tribes and the selection of land for their homes. No matter how far back in history we so that none would do deeds of that delve we find the Indian placidly enjoying his pipe. The Indian pipes of prehistoric times may serve to give the clue to the mysterious origin of

these people and their early migrations. Take, for example, the pipes made and smoked by the Eskimo of Alaska. Many of these pipes are amazingly elaborate in design and decoration. They are often made of prehistoric ivory, as it is called; .that is, from the tusks of extinct animals which had been preserved in the frozen north for untold centuries. Uunlike the ordinary bowl of the tobacco smoking pipe, these have a flat disc, with a very small hole at the centre. They are a perfect reproduction, in short, of the opium pipes of the Orientals, although used for tobacco smoking. The question naturally arisesc as to where the Eskimo learned to make such pipes and the conclusion is inevitable that they show an Oriental influence. In other words, the Eskimo must have at some time been in touch with the continent of Asia. One of the pipes is decorated with a boat with two sails and with several walrus seated about it In some such boat the ancestors of these tribes may have crossed the Behring Sea. Eskimo have, in fact, been discovered in North-western Siberia who still retain the language and customs of the American tribes, so that it is concluded that a: "cme remote period they actually emigrated from America to Asia. Not only pipes, but actual tobacco used by the prehistoric people has been discovered. The leaves of tobacco with the pipeschanced to be covered with earth and sand, and in the remarkably dry, warm air of the region in which they were found they have been preserved intact. It is -believed that these pipes and tobacco are fully a thousand years old, perhaps much older. Like most of the prehistoric tobacco, the leaves are flat. The trick of twisting it is a much later custom.