The Good and evil of tobacco.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Good and evil of tobacco. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/20 (page 3)
    3 Smoking is the chief pleasure of savage life. After exposure to the dangers of a hunting excursion, on the return from the war-path, and at every convenient opportunity, the pipe comes into requisition. At the conclusion of any important transaction, the making of peace, settlement of boundaries, treaties of commerce, &c., the pipe of peace is smoked, the famous calumet, which, according to Indian tradition, was a gift from the Sun to the Pawnee nation. The peace-pipe, which is very large and richly decorated in the highest style of savage art, is amongst the holy things of each tribe, being kept away from the common gaze, and confided only to the care of the first man in the nation. The ceremony of smoking the pipe of peace is as grave as possible. The chief, having lighted the pipe, offers it to the Great Spirit, to the sun, to the earth, and to the four cardinal points, whilst the remainder of the savages, seated and motionless as statues, silently regard him. The pipe passes from hand to hand, each having a different method of taking it. After this preliminary smoke, the real business of the council begins. The calumet is employed in all their invocations and religious ceremonies, and he who breaks the amity implied in its use is looked upon as an infamous wretch, worthy of human scorn and divine vengeance. To the peace-pipe a war-pipe was considered a necessary comple¬ ment. This is appropriately decked with blood-red ornaments, and is smoked in the council when war is decided on, and by the chief when explaining to his warriors the expedition in which he wishes them to engage. At a certain point on the northern bank of the lower Missouri are rocks called by the Indians Manitou, on which they deposit the offerings to the Great Spirit, which are to win them success in war or hunting. Chief amongst these offerings are eagles’ feathers and tobacco. When Oviedo brought the seeds of the tobacco plant from America to Spain it began to be cultivated as a show-plant on account of its beautiful leaves. Monardes, a professor of the University of Seville, was the first to write upon the new importation, and acting upon the gossip he had heard from the returned Spaniards as to the uses it served in Indian medicine, he ascribed to it high virtues as a remedy against headache, colic, toothache, and other complaints. The plant now begins to figure in botanical books, and Clusius, writing in 1574, of the medicines which had been imported from the New World, characterises tobacco as a panacea for all sorts of diseases ! Jean Nicot, Lord of Villemaine, French Ambassador to Portugal, having accidentally become acquainted with the supposed healing virtues of tobacco, sent pre¬ sents of the seed to Catherine de Medici, and several of the French nobility. This was in 1560. It has been said that Andre Thevet, a physician, who had returned from Brazil in 1556, introduced the plant into Angouleme. But this is certain, that before the year 1600 it was valued as a medicine, and took its place in the pharraacopoea of the day. * Gatlin, North American Indians, 9th ed., 1857, ii. 164-68.